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Cuttin' a rug -- with a bug
Published: 6/14/2011 4:36 PM
Last Modified: 6/14/2011 4:40 PM


I can't really determine how big this particular June bug is, but the one I killed twice today probably had a pilot's license.

My birthday got off to a frightful start this morning, thanks to my bad aim and a tiny house guest.

So I had an interview at 9 a.m., right? I'm outta bed, getting ready, my hair's did, I'm wearing a favorite shirt, blah, blah, blah. As I'm about to turn the bathroom light off above my vanity, I spy something reflected in the mirror. I turn around, look up and spy with my now dilated eye a freakin' June bug. A biggun, too.

Naturally, I scream. You see, I don't do bugs. Hate them, have ever since a big water beetle with pinchers on it crawled up my leg one summer afternoon in 1982, causing me to run three laps around the playground before running inside the daycare, where my cousin knocked it off with a bottle of baby powder. Since then, I've been scared of anything creepy crawly and crunchy under my feet.

Anyway, back in my bathroom, I'm staring up in disgust at a June bug, which I'd never seen in daylight. Thought they were like vampires and burnt to ash by dawn or something. Apparently not, so I grab a flipflop from the next room and assume I'll slap the sucker into oblivion.

Well, as I'm still kinda screaming at a low decibel, I succeed in knocking it off the ceiling and, I could've sworn, into my mouth.

I have never thrown up so quickly and violently in my life. Long, gory story short, I had to take off my clothes and re-shower, mortified that I'd actually, albeit momentarily, ingested a bug.

Out of the shower and in a new shirt (as in "not been washed, rip off the tags, throw it in the dryer with a wet rag" new), I hadn't bothered to wash my hair again, as I thought it would save time. So I'm back in the mirror, making sure almost everything was in place(ish) -- and then I saw it. Not on the ceiling but in my hair. THE THING WAS STILL ALIVE!!!

I scream something unintelligible, even to myself -- kinda like if you asked a child to mimic a combination of Swahili and the Swedish chef from "The Muppets" at a high-pitch scream. That's the sound I made as I slapped myself repeatedly up the head before slipping on the flipflop from earlier and stomping it dead. Fo' real dead this time. I kept looking at it to make sure, then sprayed it with deodorant (sorry, Mr. Ozone) to make sure it was crushed AND asphyxiated before taking half a roll of toilet paper to wipe it up and flush it to sea.

In case it had laid eggs in my head, I had to re-wash my hair, which is now very dry feeling and will probably fall out by week's end.

But I ain't gonna have no June bug babies cuttin' a rug in my hair. Not on my birthday, anyway.

Peace, love and things without pinchers ... XOXO


Reader Comments 1 Total
202256 (last year)
That's not a good way to start your birthday. I guess one way to look at it is your
day HAD to get better after that. Sure hope so!
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Living Wright

While other kids were watching "The Smurfs," Scene Writer Jason Ashley Wright was tuned in to "Style with Elsa Klensch." By fourth grade, he knew he wanted to write, and spent almost three years publishing a weekly teen-oriented magazine, Teen-Zine -- circulation: 2. After earning a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi, he became the medical reporter and teen board coordinator for the Hattiesburg (Miss.) American, a Gannett newspaper. Eight months later, with visions of Elsa dancing in his head, he applied for the fashion writer position at the Tulsa World, where he began working on Aug. 3, 1998. He is now a general assignment reporter for Scene.

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