Of All the Creatures Big and Small, I Squish the Small

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I never realized how much of a killer I am. Sorry to disappoint. It’s true. I don’t think I need to include a trigger warning with this story, though, because you’re likely a killer, too. Sorry to say.

A small portion of you aren’t killers, and I realize that, so please know you’re about to read descriptions of murders of numerous individuals who were roughly ⅛ inch tall. There is mention of the killing of one individual ¼ inch tall, but that was only one.

There now, let me begin this heinous story.

This past weekend, I found them. The first one was crawling as fast as it could, which was still quite slow, along the unopened paper towel roll, which I’d pulled from the kitchen cabinet, for which I needed a step ladder to reach. The cabinet, situated above the refrigerator, houses two categories: paper goods and boxed cereal. It was the first of many grain beetles I’d come across over the next fifteen minutes spent unloading everything from the cabinet, in search of more of its kind. In the process, I squished each one that moved. I killed. Murdered. Is there any other word for it? I didn’t kiss or gently relocate. I obliterated.

But this isn’t the first time I’d done such a thing. I’ve been on a roll for some reason, and it’s starting to unsettle me, especially when I do it at such scale.

Take the spotted lanternfly. At the official urging of my county, I’ve taken out many of these beautifully patterned lives. I didn’t even do it undercover. I did it at my favorite grocery store in plain sight, a hero to many.

My favorite grocery store is Wegmans. (I’ve said that twenty times in this blog by now.) There’s a new one near me, an urban, three-story, glamorous structure, which has a dining area, including outdoor patio seating under umbrella shading. The patio is on a second-floor deck that looks out onto a field situated among the behemoth glass facades of commercial real estate. It was on the cement deck that I saw them, scads of spotted lanternflies, some motionless, many bopping here and there on the concrete. We got an official email from our county at least once, asking us to kill these invasive creatures immediately. I’d never gotten such an email that I can recall. We were all on a mission. These flies were that big a deal.

So, I murdered. I went fly-by-fly, stomping with my foot.

Stomp.

Got you!

Stomp.

Oops. Darn. Come back here, you.

Stomp.

Got you!

I had to chase down the ones I missed, which started flipping out and frantically attempting escape. I don’t know what I looked like through the glitzy glass walls to the customers inside, but I hope I was entertaining. A murderer like me only hopes to please.

But it doesn’t end there. With great commitment, I smush the occasional stink bug that lollygags its way across the wall close to the ceiling in my house. If I have even a shred of compassion in my murderous body, it’s for these sorry things. They walk at a rate of one inch per hour and are extremely easy to kill, as long as you have a good swath of paper towel between you and it as you squish. It isn’t called a stink bug for nothing. Don’t kill them with your bare fingers. Or do. You will learn a lifelong lesson, which is always of value.

I routinely purchase wool moth sticky pads, which hang around my house to capture the wool moth infestation that happened when I brought home some unfortunate wool once. I didn’t realize it until it was too late. These pads are a murderer’s passive game — no in-the-moment, with bare hands type of deal. It rounds out my game, though. I can kill while sleeping now.

One time, there infiltrated through our front door a ginormous hornet. My husband instructed me to kill it based on his erroneous identification of “murder hornet”, an invasive species. Apparently, those things have been eradicated in the U.S. for a little while now. Instead, I killed an innocent. This makes me feel even more murderous — killing for no reason.

But I’ve long killed for no reason. Spiders, gnats, mosquitoes. For you, maybe mosquito killing has purpose, but for me — maybe due to my blood type? — they never bite. They’re simply a nuisance. Does being bothersome warrant your death? I ask this as a semi-professional bug killer. Not that it would matter, it seems. And this is what is glaring at me lately.

When I expended noticeable energy to kill both the lanternflies and the fake murder hornet, it was very obvious to me that I was feverishly trying to kill something. When you whack away at a mosquito with your hand, it doesn’t really register. It’s a momentary reaction to a nuisance so small that the next moment in time comes easily, and you forget what you just did. It barely happened.

But if you must chase down a large hornet in your house while your husband calls it murderous, and the thing keeps flitting out of your reach, and you keep shrieking, you log that memory away for a good long while. Once you capture it and feel the substantial size of its body under your killer hand, you are ensconced in your murderous self. It fully happened.

I know we’ll do this — kill live things that either bother or harm us. And so would they if given the opportunity and capability. If you look at the big picture, we’re all running, flying, swimming around, working towards supremacy in our waking lives. Or at the very least, survival. I get it. It’s how it is.

But, still, it struck me that time I chased the hornet in my house. The thing was big, and there was a true battle between us. There is no battle with a gnat. There is only chase. When there is battle, it hits home that this is a “me versus you” thing. I’d rather invite the small creature in for tea and scones so we can get to know each other.

I know an invasive species will do great harm to other species, thus the justification to eradicate. Yet, it still feels weird to me to be so set on ending life. The spotted lantern fly has no idea it’s a danger. It’s just doing what’s best for it. It doesn’t mean what’s best for it isn’t a bad thing. It means life is worth something simply because it’s life. I guess? I’m torn.

Sometimes we choose what we see as an ethical positive over unethical harm, when it’s simply the lesser of two evils — according to us. But we’re in charge of us. We have a responsibility to choose this way. The thing is, neither choice was inherently detestable. When we can see this, it’s not fun. That’s because life can be a beautiful, hard, nonsensical thing.

I’m a bug killer, but I think I’m a good soul. I hope?

It’s complicated.

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Hope you're doing well, friends.