My Kryptonite: The Six-Legged

We all have fatal flaws. Harry Potter's was his total selflessness. Superman's was Kryptonite. James Bond's was his tendency to sleep with every beautiful woman he met. Achilles' fatal flaw was a tendon on the lower half of his leg. (Whoever dreamed up that myth was totally running out of ideas for interesting stories.)


I actually have multiple fatal flaws, like social awkwardness and bad looks, and innumerable phobias. Topping my list of phobias are:

• Award-winning Japanese horror films
• Clowns
• Mojo-Jojo from the Powerpuff Girls
• Pretty girls
• Happy people
  

But I'd have to say there is one of my phobias that totally dominates over all the rest. And that would have to be:

BUGS

Don't you dare laugh. Don't giggle, snort, chuckle, chortle, snicker, snore, or sneeze. If there's anything you should be doing right now, that would be nodding in solemn agreement.

In the beginning, God made the world, and it was good. And there was much rejoicing. All the creatures of the world lived in perfect harmony. Then God made dinosaurs. Then God made space aliens. They both died out after a while because of meteor impacts and failing economies.

But he had something twice as horrid to replace them. Something three times as horrid. Something almost--just almost--four times as horrid to replace dinosaurs and space aliens.

He made bugs.

I am more afraid of some bugs than I am of anything else.

Even death.

Fine--maybe not death. Unless it's a death because of bugs. Double threat.

I don't know why I hate bugs so much. You'd think I would have come to terms with them considering they make up someting like three fifths of the animal population on the planet. But I just haven't. Maybe it's because of a sheltered environment. Does it really matter? No! What matters is that all bugs deserve to be burned at the stake and then fed to hungry baby whales.

Bugs bring out the worst in me. They bring out the violent murderer in me. Any bug I find outside is subject to an epic shriek and intense self-consciousness. Any bug I find inside my house is sentenced to a high-pitched yelp and death by the tissue. Any bug I find in my bedroom...

I don't talk about what happens to those bugs.

A MESSAGE TO ALL THE BUGS OUT THERE READING THIS BLOG:

Please don't take this post personally. I don't go out of my way to kill bugs. I really don't. I just wish bugs and humans would acknowledge their differences and keep apart from each other. Why are you bugs getting so up-close and personal with us all the time? It's really rather inconsiderate.

Hey, you know what's even more inconsiderate?

The idiotic Discovery Channel and National Geographic television episodes that advertise facts about bugs that NO ONE WANTS TO KNOW. Even worse are the idiotic creeps who watch those shows and then run to school and tell their friends all the facts. Those are the only nerds you have the right to bully. I know I bully them. You know what I did to this one kid on my soccer team who had a pet tarantula? I gave him a really long, mean stare. But believe me--he deserved it.

Believe me--I think it's great all the things bugs do for the ecosystem. They pollinate. They decompose. Some of them are even courteous enough to eat other bugs. But would it really hurt if God made bugs look like this instead of like they are in real life?

I know I wouldn't mind. I could hug some of the bugs in that movie.

This post hasn't been very eloquent, but hang in there.

I'll talk to you another time.