And Now Let’s Hear From Our Insect Friends
In the course of a long life, rich in incident and leavened with strong emotion, I don’t believe I have ever sat in a backyard and heard anyone say, “listen! Do you hear it? That insistent buzzing like an orchestra of extremely small chainsaws under the direction of a conductor with a bad temper? Nearly drives you around the bend, doesn’t it? Many say that the occasional additional dive-bombing sound effect is simply the icing on the cake. Those are the mosquitoes coming in for their nightly human feeding. They call them the Songstress of the Twilight around here.”
Nor, along Great Plains hiking trails, around ocean beach fire pits, just outside the door of Rocky Mountain hideaways, in the side yards of Southern gathering spots, in the open areas of various lodges and dwelling places in the Northern Ranges, do you hear people telling other people who have just been repeatedly stung by wasps or worst of all, yellowjackets, “oh, don’t mind my little buddy. He’s just trying to make friends!”
Upon hearing of fire ant nests the size of small cities, killer bee clouds that cast a shadow across entire neighborhoods, scorpion colonies, praying mantis swarms, or any other manifestation of innumerable insects on the move in a relentless and unthinking march, I don’t believe I have heard a soul say, upon hearing the new,s “good deal! We could use a little variety around here.”
No, on the contrary, on those few times a person ever gets to a place where insects are scarce or non-existent, the frozen tundra of the Arctic region say, or the remotest regions of the oceangoing world, they, all of us, really, are apt to say, “good.”
If they take the thought further, they might expand on the sentiment and say, “well, I am lost among the frozen tundra in the northern latitudes, or I am floating adrift in the boundless sea, but at least there aren’t any of those fat stinging horseflies we used to have out in the pasture just beyond the backyard proper.” And though it may be slim satisfaction, it is satisfaction nonetheless.
That is why, if you grew up in times other than these, the new breed of insect control professionals make for unsettling encounters.
The contrast is best provided by first taking a look at those old times.
By recollection, but no pictorial evidence, we used to run gaily down the street chasing the slow-rolling city truck that was spraying – or ‘fogging’ as the supposedly scientific term current at the time had it – all the trees at the side of the road.
I won’t say the process had the festive nature of a parade, but it was viewed, this rich emission of pesticides bathing the local fauna in a lingering cloud of some poison or other, as an ordinary and important city task.
If, further, insects had somehow invaded the house, be they ants, cockroaches, spiders, silverfish, or anything at all that could be captured in the generic term ‘bug,’ I think I can recall answering the doorbell’s ring then calling out, “Ma! The guys with the flamethrowers are here!”
In any event the reaction was immediate and severe in this or any encounter between species.
Now however the approach is different.
The new breed of pest control professionals wish first to understand things from the insect’s point of view.
They argue gently on behalf of the insect – whichever one is the topic of the moment, no matter how obnoxious, or how unpleasant its history of encounters with humans – presenting to the potential buyer the Bug Perspective, as if we were at a civic forum where first one then the other group of citizens presents their thinking on the proposed new recreation center.
“Valid points on both sides,” is the prevailing tone, and thus it is with the smiling pest control salesman on the front stoop.
This smiling business, that is the first thing that raises a red flag.
This young person gives the impression of wanting to restore the natural order between human and insect, restore a natural bond, clear up a long-lived misunderstanding, be the type of person who steps between two assailants and gets to them reconsider.
The thought pleases him, but not me.
More welcome would be the kind of grim-faced guy, perhaps still in combat gear from World War II, ready to do dirty work on behalf of civilization.
Part assassin, part hit man, part flat-out character, he is just the man for the job.
And to prove it he wears a shirt with his name on it.
Since I have been paying attention I have taken this as a sign of straight dealing.
A man with his name on his shirt cannot fade into the crowd, cannot dodge and weave, cannot claim that you must be thinking of someone else.
There’s his name right on the shirt — Carl — and this proud declaration makes a man careful of his words and actions. He delivers what he promises.
Such shirts could greatly benefit all sorts of segments in the economy by the way.
When the anonymous consultant who came in and advised in 2007 that your firm get into collateralized debt obligation swaps as a hedge against inflation, it becomes easy in the midst of the economic and civilizational collapse that follows to recall that his name was Fred. It was right there on the front of his shirt. Fred. This aids prosecutors and the entire legal system. Fred, Fred, Fred.
In national political debates that draw numerous participant,s it might be appreciated by the viewing audience for each speaker to have their names sewn into the front of their blouse or shirt. The camera may dwell on it as the candidate steps up to the podium and the viewer says to himself, “oh, yeah, that guy.” It just establishes a bond from the get-go.
In these multi-generational five hour plays that sometime come storming back onto Broadway, how helpful it would be if each character, from whatever decade and whatever circumstances, had their name emblazoned where all can see it.
In the matter of the myths of the Greek gods, my goodness, it would be a help if each rolled onto the scene with a name emblazoned on the front of their toga, and as for opera – opera! – it would never be the same if we had any idea at all who this fellow is at the front of the stage just belting his heart out.
Do I go so far as to advise that the demons in hell wear that kind of grey-blue close-striped shirts — of the dealership repair shop style — with their difficult and often unpleasant names enscribed on it, simply so that the reprobate among us can keep them all straight through eternity? It merits a discussion at least.
This young fellow on the doorstep, The Insect Whisperer we might call him, has no such name on the front of his shirt.
Perhaps he wishes to convey that he is Everyman, or that we all take the notion of identify far too seriously.
Whatever. To this customer he seems unwilling to put his name behind this malarkey that he now delivers with a smile.
As far as I can tell listening to the spiel, the company he represents has advanced in their philosophy to the point that their product comes into contact not at all with the target population, nor does anything bad to them if, inadvertently, it does.
It works instead by suggestion, or innuendo. By good example perhaps.
This sublime substance seeks in the most indirect way possible to sway insect opinion by educating them on current issues, introducing them to a broader array of points of view so that they can come to understand the shrieking or madly slapping human’s perspective, and direct them into other more productive pursuits than, as mentioned, dive bombing and puncturing, gouging, strip-mining, excavating, or otherwise digging into the flesh of humans who come into their range.
The logo on the truck parked on the curb is suitably holistic – blooming flowers figure largely – or perhaps it is some oval or circle of some sort, meant to indicate the great cycle of life.
In other words I see nothing image-wise of the howitzer, grenade-launcher, flamethrower, blasting cap, bulldozer, sledgehammer of the type used by proud working men to build the railroad that knit together this great land, medieval hammer and anvil, small very localized nuclear device, or, in the name of nostalgia, the image of a city truck spewing airborne poisons merrily along suburban streets.
So I politely decline his pitch and wish him luck and send him on his way.
It is, happily, not a bad day to be out walking about, were it not for the cloud of diving, stinging, biting, searing, puncturing, insects who follow him, noting, perhaps, that a pest control man without his name on his shirt is easy pickings.
