"Why Do You Hate Bugs So Much?"

I have about a billion answers to the inquiry of why I soo loathe the insect world.

They are gross. They are scary. They invade my personal home spaces. They are sneaky. They bite and sting. Some of them spread diseases. They are dirty. They're everywhere. Because cockroaches exist. Because bees exist. Because I hate them. Pick one!

As I sat at brunch this morning sipping Easter mimosas with two friends of mine, our conversation somehow digressed into vivid re-tellings of our respective harrowing experiences with bugs. Lord knows I have had many such encounters, and I've devoted entire posts to some of them.

The three of us recounted various tales of run-ins with insects and our insanely irrational reactions to them. Two of us tend to devolve into full on panic attacks when staring in the face of roach danger, while the other experiences total body paralysis under the same duress. Whatever your highly irrational response may be, it can be a refreshing conversation when you discover a comrade in your neurotic bug-phobe affliction.

The brunch conversation ended with me uttering this phrase: "Watch, now that we've talked about this I'm going to go home and find a roach in my apartment tonight."

Bad move, self, bad move.

No, I did not come home to a roach inside my apartment. Yet. The night is still young, so that may still be on the docket with my luck. But, no. Given what happened to me on the way home, I think I may prefer the roach.

There I am, driving home. I've got the windows down, because, you know, it's a very nice day out and I'd like to feel the breeze. I was tooling down Lake Drive, I had a chilly Diet Dr. Pepper in the cupholder, and that sweet ass Luke Bryan song was playing on the radio.

And then.......and then.....

A rogue bee flew into my open driver side window and TOTALLY EFFED UP MY WORLD.

I was going 45 miles per hour. All I could hear was the sound of trapped wings buzzing furiously. The bee was IN MY HAIR. It was in my hair. And It could not escape. I went to the Chili Peppers concert last night and this was my morning-after hair. IT WAS A HOT MESS AND THE BEE COULD NOT ESCAPE IT.

I was going 45 miles per hour. This was actually happening. I took one hand off the wheel, very unsuccessfully tried to control my breathing, and also unsuccessfully tried to feel around the rat's nest on my head for the entangled invertebrate. I kept thinking to myself how appropriate this end would be for me. Female, age 24, expires of panic attack induced by trapped bee in messy hairdo. Write it in the obituary. Anyone who knew me would not be surprised.

Finally, I found the spot in my hair where the bee was trapped. I flailed furiously. Okay. The bee was no longer in that spot in my hair. (Please keep in mind I am still trying to maintain control of my vehicle throughout this whole debacle).

Tears were streaming hard. Although the bee was no longer in my hair, I had momentarily lost it--and I always adamantly argue that a lost bug is far worse than seeing a bug in your vicinity in the first place, AND I was still trying to keep my car straight on the road through my panic and tears. The bee was now in a mystery location somewhere very close to, or as I soon found out, ON my person.

The bee had migrated to my shoulder. My shoulder. In other words--bare skin. And do you know what he did?

That godforsaken bastard stung me.

Just so we're clear, these are all the ways the bee violated me today:

1. The bee entered my personal should-be-insect-free-and-safe vehicle, which is a freak miracle in and of itself as the car was traveling at 45 mph.

2. The bee burrowed into the abyss of my morning after hair and got himself all sorts of twisted up in there, causing a panic attack and a near-collision.

3. The bee stung me. I don't know if you've been stung by a bee anytime in recent history, but it really freaking hurts. If that makes me a pansy, then you just pick up that watering can and watch me grow, because bee stings REALLY HURT.

4. The bee took away the sense of comfort and security I previously had while driving my vehicle down a nice road at 45 mph. No longer will I be able to do that without the ever-lurking fear that this may happen again. This is the same fear I harbor basically every time I go into a small bathroom. The culprit in that situation? A roach.


That's what I hate bugs. That's why I'm so scared of them. Because shit like this happens. Well--that-- coupled with a deeply ingrained, inherent fear of them that I've had since birth, I'm pretty sure.

I think the chick over at the "what should we call me" tumblr got it wrong, though. She proposed that this is what happens when people feel a bug on them:

When I Feel A Bug On Me

While this graphic is certainly true in some cases, I think the following post from her site is much more accurate for how I react when there is a bug anywhere near me:

This is What I Actually Do When There is a Bug Somewhere Near Me

I become an insane gazelle, leaping over and/or bulldozing anything or anyone in my path to escape the eminent danger posed by the bug.



I hate bugs.
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A Couple of Things Happened....

A couple of things happened in the last few weeks that are all more or less related, and serve the respective purposes of either making me feel a whole lot better or a whole lot worse about where my life currently stands. I am, after all, inching up on my 25th birthday, and events like those I am about to discuss provide different perspectives these days than they maybe used to.

*Sidenote: I turn 25 in two weeks, on Friday the 13th, and will be spending the day with 14-year-old gremlins. God help me.*

Here are the events that recently transpired:


1. About 58 more people got engaged, and said engagements were slathered all over Newsfeed:

This is not particular to this week. This happens every week---Every day! It's a logical progression, I suppose. You hit your mid-twenties---everyone you know gets engaged and hitched. I have realized, however, that when this phenomenon starts occurring, two factions start branching off among the twenty-something crowd.

You are either part of "The Married/Engaged Crowd," or the "I'm Going to Die Alone Crowd." I am (obviously) part of the latter, so I can't speak for what kind of conversations go down among the Engaged people. I can say, however, that a certain type of camaraderie forms among those social pariahs relegated to the bowels of single-dom.

I find myself texting or messaging the few people I know who are still single when yet another mutual friend becomes betrothed. One of my single friends recently posted the following message on my wall:

"Thought you would enjoy this. . .earlier this school year, I went on a date with a guy. Just went on Facebook this morning and he is engaged. Bahhhh."

As depressing as all of this is, it's still uber-comforting to know I have these fellow hold-outs to commiserate with when we lose another friend to the institution known as marriage. Whether our lack-of-nuptial-prospects is by choice or not? Well, let's just not even venture there.

So why do I mention all of this? Like I said, turning 25 is morphing my perspective. I actually thought this thought the other day....

"Man, I hope she doesn't find someone and get married all of a sudden!"

What the HELL is wrong with me? Who thinks things like that? Who actually sits there and hopes that someone else does NOT get married for the SOLE reason that you will be left with one less person to bitch to when everyone else continues to get engaged?

This girl, apparently. This will be something I work on heading into that quarter-century. You know, NOT being such a misery-loves-company Debbie Downer! Baby steps.



2. Burger King got rid of chicken fries:

That's right. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. The BK Lounge NO LONGER SELLS chicken fries.

Are you kidding me, Burger King? You discontinue your absolute most delicious menu item because you "revamped" your look and your menu in an effort to make yourself look more fancy which will never successfully happen because you are BURGER KING?! You are, by definition, NOT CLASSY. Or fancy. You are the Burger King. You give away paper crowns with your kid meals. You are represented in TV commercials by a super creepy looking "king" with a plastic face and body. You (USED TO) sell chicken nuggets in the shape of "crowns."

I rolled up to this drive-thru (it's "thru", not "through." You're at Burger King, after all). I rolled up to this drive-thru and took a little look-see at the menu. I didn't recognize it. I hadn't been to Burger King in quite some time. One thing was for sure: the menu looked odd. My eyes scanned through the typical sandwich value meals. I never ordered those anyway. They kept moving, past the #6 chicken sang-wich, and finally rested on #9. Chicken Fries! Right?..............

"#9: Homestyle Chicken Strips Meal"

Um, what? What voodoo magic is this? The BK Lounge chick finally came through on the order-box and asked me what I wanted. This is how the convo went down....

I said....."I would like chicken fries."

BK Lounge: "What?"

Me: "Chicken Fries."

BK Lounge: "What?"

Me: "Um-- do y'all not have chicken fries anymore?"

BK Lounge: "No, we don't."

Me: ".........................................."


And then I drove off.

I was pretty upset about the chicken fries. So, yet again, perspective. I'm almost 25 years old. I should not be getting so upset about a place like the BK Lounge discontinuing something like chicken fries. But I did. And kind of still am. They were fucking delicious. This is good news, though, as it gives me yet another facet of my skewed outlook on life to work on heading into Year 25!



But in all seriousness, if you never had the pleasure of partaking in Burger King's chicken fries, I feel bad for you. I am also simultaneously super jealous of you because you don't know what you're missing..........and I do.


Which brings me to....

3. And then this happened:


Let me explain this picture. The evil overlords over at Facebook finally forced all 5 billion of its users to use Timeline. Fine, Facebook, I will use Timeline. I hit "publish" on my new "timeline" today, and was subsequently forced to re-update and re-answer all sorts of questions and preferences I had already previously gone to painstaking lengths to perfect.

One of these "updates" was to my relationship status. I "updated" my relationship status to Single, which apparently created an entire Newsfeed story about my "updated" status that read:

"Shannon Townes has updated her relationship status to 'Single.'"

That Newsfeed story then apparently appeared on evvverrry one of my friends' Newsfeeds.

I did not realize this would happen, or I most likely would never have re-submitted my 'Single' status for all of Facebook to know and judge. I don't, however, judge any of these people for commenting on and liking my ignorance of how Facebook Timeline would exploit my relationship status for its own sadistic site traffic increase.

As I grow nearer and nearer to 25, there are some things I probably need to re-evaluate in my life. Perhaps the fact that I blog about BK Chicken Fries and being single have something to do with the fact that I am....still single. Until that re-evaluation occurs, however, I think I'll just go pour another glass of Pinot Grigio and text my single friends......

Cheers!

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