Bugs! (The crawly-kind not the computer-kind)

I have an outrageous fear of bugs. Always have. When I was little, if I saw a bug in the room I was occupying, I would take refuge as far away from the bug as possible (on the seat of the toilet, on the arm of a chair)--still keeping it in sight (the only thing that scares me more than a bug is a bug I know is still there but can no longer see)--and scream:

"DAD! BUG!"

Or:

"MOM! BUG!"

Or:

"BRANDON! BUG! PLEASE!"

Brandon required a "please" because, as an older brother, he sometimes enjoyed watching me suffer. Few things cause me more suffering than bugs. Strangely, I used to let Brandon drape my outstretched arms in his pet snakes and was not the least bit perturbed.

Anyway, what makes my fear of bugs all the more bothersome is that, although I hate bugs, I also hate to kill them. I hate bugs and I hate killing them, equally. Killing them makes me feel bad, in the case of some of the more innocent-looking bugs and even some spiders I know are doing good things (like eating other bugs), and it makes me feel disgusted, in the case of bugs that crunch when I smush them with a wad of paper towels or bugs with a million legs some number of which inevitably end up separated from the body when I smush them with a wad of paper towels.

Also, I cannot kill bugs with the bottom of my shoe (gross! I have to wear them after all!) or rolled up-magazines (I have seen too many people swing and miss, thereby notifying the bug of his impending death and sending him scurrying into couch cushions or tiny cracks in floors). No, when I am by myself with a bug, I use the wad of paper towels, and I don't skimp. I do not like to feel the bug in my hand.

I know I am not alone in my fear of bugs. I also know that many women in my situation will call upon a man to de-bug a room. And now you see the problem Tiffany and I have, don't you? We do not have a man. We are man-less, by design.

Tiffany does not like bugs either. And she would NEVER reach for a bug with her hand even if her hand was covered in a wad of paper towels. So sometimes we are left in a situation like this:

"TIFFANY! BUG!"

"EEEEK! GIVE ME YOUR SHOE!"

"NO! DISGUSTING!"

"YOU KILL IT THEN!"

A few nights ago a long-legged flying bug flew directly at our faces while we were preparing dinner. He was not so scary looking. But I hated him all the same. In a moment of self-sacrifice, I reached for him with cupped hands and... caught him!

"I caught him," I said to Tiffany, "open the window! Quick, he's flying around in my hands!"

But instead of opening the window, Tiffany screamed at the top of her lungs at the thought of the long-legged flying bug flying around in my hands. In so doing, she scared me, and I dropped him.

And then I am sad to report that Tiffany reached for a magazine, rolled it up, and... well, she didn't miss.