I Absolutely Hate Bugs

So today I'm enjoying my nice day off and I go grab my coffee mug to take a sip and as I'm drinking all that hot, rich, robust, caffeinated goody goodness I notice a little blob on the outside of my mug. Nay it was a moving little baby roach-shaped blob scurrying along the outside of my mug and it was like two inches from my eyeball. Well naturally I freaked the hell out. I somehow managed to not toss my mug at the wall, which for me was a huge accomplishment. I should probably stop real quick and explain some of my past skirmishes with insects so you know just what an accomplishment that was to react rationally in this situation.

Exhibit A:

When I was a kid I actually used to like to go outside and be active, which now I simply cannot fathom how I ever had in interest in such things. I used to like to go outside and play basketball and skateboard and whatnot. On one such occasion that I was enjoying my outdoor activity, a very sudden and loud buzz got all up in aural space. Obviously it was a loathsome and detestable bee. Let me go on record and point out that I've never been stung by a bee to date because I have laudable natural reflexes against bees and I respond very quickly when threatened. I immediately took off running and the bee immediately gave chase. This thing chased me all down the street and after I ran a block or so I turned quickly and ran back to my house. By the time I got back to my driveway I didn't hear any more buzzing around my head so I ran inside and I believe I spent the rest of the day in the house.

Exhibit B:

Growing up I remember we used to have a huge roach problem, huge being functional both as a representation of the number of roaches we encountered and the size in which these roaches came. I suppose growing up with a lot of roaches around you could either become desensitized them and learn to respond to them rationally or take the other route and demonize them and fear and loathe them (in Las Vegas, BA-DUM PSSSSHHH!) and only respond to them like a small frightened child in an abandoned clown mannequin factory. I took the latter route. I can remember waking up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water in the kitchen and turning on the lights only to see a bunch of huge cockroaches scatter and crawl back into whatever crack or crevice they came in through. One day we were outside playing volleyball in the backyard and out of nowhere a giant flying roach of some kind lands on the net in front of me, and not only that but it's making a hissing sound! My mind is split between trying not to crap my pants and trying to figure out how this thing was even here, because to my knowledge this type of roach only lives in like Africa or jungles of Brazil, not in my backyard where I'm playing volleyball. Seriously, why did I even go outside as a kid if there were bees and hissing demon roaches flying around? So I ran toward the porch and this thing flew and landed in front of me, still hissing mind you. I wanted to just kill it but I was too afraid so I ran inside and stared out the window for a solid hour at this thing as it terrorized me from my back porch.

Exhibit C:

This is the one where I finally take a stand against them. One normal run-of-the-mill morning (I'm probably around 21 or 22 at this point in time) I woke up and immediately noticed a buzzing outside my door somewhere. I knew I was the only one home so asked myself "Wtf, Grant?". I get up and open the door and realized it was coming from the kitchen, so I look in from the hallway and spot a dark shape swirling all around behind the window curtains on the back door. A savage Hell Bee has decided to take the fight into my very own homestead and taunt me with it's droning and flying about! This had to have been some relative of the first bee and it was avenging its family's honor by finally confronting me and finishing the job its ancestor had started. I went back to my room and quickly tried to formulate a plan because I knew soon enough this thing was going to find its way out of the kitchen and come hunt me down. It could probably smell my fear. I knew if I acted quickly I could smash it while it was trapped behind the curtain. I grabbed a shoe of mine and started to head out but I realized that attacking with a shoe could potentially result in a broken window or something, so I put it down. I didn't want to hurt my hand and I also didn't want to feel the disgusting texture of the bee's body at the moment of impact so I ended up grabbing a shirt off the ground and I wrapped it around my hand.

I go back into the kitchen and the bee is no longer at the back door but lucky for me still it is now trapped behind the curtains of the dining room window. I walk over to the window and quickly pull the curtains aside so that I could see the bee through the lighter sheer curtain underneath it was also trapped behind. I did a couple of lineup arm extensions to make sure I was going to hit this bee. Then I remember making some kind of a noise that was half battle cry and half the noise a special kid makes if you go anywhere near his ears, and I extended my arm out to squish this bee and end this whole debacle. Well needless to say my shirt-wrapped hand connected with the bee and continued to shatter the window pane behind it. I froze while my brain tried to process what just happened. I just punched a bee out the window. I had to check to make sure it was dead so I slowly opened up the back door and glanced to the right, and out on the grown laying in a pile of broken glass was the bee dead as a doornail. I went back inside and immediately felt totally horrible for accidentally breaking the window, which is what I was trying to avoid in the first place. But then from the back of my mind came a second thought accompanied by a feeling of total pride and badassness that I just punched a bee out the window. It was like I was at a bar and this bee was like "That's the last drink you'll ever have because I'm about to kill you" and I was like "Not if I have anything to say about it!" and just punched its ass out the window like Clint Eastwood or John Wayne or something.

Alright so back to the original problem. I think you can see now that it was a huge step for me to NOT throw that mug of coffee at the wall after seeing a baby roach crawling around in front of my face. I calmly but quickly set the mug down on my desk and grabbed the nearest napkin I had laying around and ended that savage's life. And with a sense of accomplishment and growth a song popped into my head....

YOU'RE THE BEST...AROUND! NO ONE'S EVER GONNA KEEP YOU DOWN! YOU'RE THE BEST...AROUND!....