Cocky&Rude

I’ve had an idea for a blog post about stink bugs buzzing around in my head for a couple weeks now. Get it? Buzzing. Ha! …Right… so anyway, I’ve avoided actually writing and posting this idea because I feel like people won’t care about it.  I’m pretty sure that Stink bugs are only infesting the general area where I live — western New Jersey and eastern Pennsylvania.  But alas, the time has come for me to bore the shit out of you.  Behold! My Stink Bug Post:

The type of stink bug that is annoying the crap out of me is the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, which was accidentally introduced into the United States from Asia sometime between 1996 and 1999 in Allentown, Pennsylvania [which is about an hour from my house]. These insects are pests of agriculture and landscapes, feeding on a wide variety fruits and seeds and berries produced by trees and ornamental plants. In recent years they have become a major pest of homes & office buildings entering buildings in the fall and appearing indoors until they exit the following summer. Their name comes from the odor emitted from scent glands when disturbed or crushed.

Here are a few of my major gripes:

1. I’m vegan, and I don’t kill bugs.  I don’t kill animals for food, and I don’t kill them when they’re crawling around my apartment.  I’m also my department’s ‘bug catcher’ — the guy that all the girls scream for when a stink bug shows up on or around their desk.  And lately there have been five stink bug invaders (or more!) each day for the last week or so.

2. They smell awful. For a long time, I never smelled their bad odor.  I had even started catching them in my hand.  But a week or so ago, a grumpy stink bug doused my hand with his noxious odor.  Not even repeated washings and Purell could ease my unhappy nose.

3. They’re freak’n everywhere.  One of my coworkers got home from work last summer and was greeted by 50-100 stink bugs swarming all around her bedroom.  Faced with no other option, her vacuum cleaner bag soon needed changing.

4. They fly like idiots. Every once and a while, these little demons take to the air in flight.  But they’re awful at flying!  They buzz and sputter in circles, and seem to have no way of landing other than crashing into a wall and falling to the floor.

5. They seem to live forever. I found a few bugs from last summer bouncing around the bottom of my window air conditioner box this year.  They must have been hibernating, because I swear that one of them was buzzing around my bedroom a few minutes later.

They’re everywhere, and they cannot be stopped!  Take cover before it’s too late!