LOVE BUGS: THOSE ANNOYING BUGS THAT MAKE OUR CARS LOOK UGLY

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I you have been to Florida lately or you live here then you have definitely noticed the lovely love bugs...or not so lovely. They are everywhere. They are outside, they fly on you, but Id have to say that the most common place is on the front of cars. Cars have become memorials except that there is no calling of names of the ones that lost their lives, or candles that are lit, and there definitely isn't any mourning over the loss of the many love bugs. I mean why would we mourn?

Love bugs have Urban Legends to them. (You know that you are awful when someone has to make up an Urban Legend about you. Ha-ha). Most of them go something like a college was experimenting with crossing flies and mosquitoes to try and come up with an enemy for mosquito larva and they accidentally let them loose. Umm...Yeah. That's totally a big lie. As much as we would like to blame these annoying bugs on someone or an incident we can't. They are just annoying bugs. Sorry. =)

Enough of being negative though. It's time to think of the glass being half full. =) I mean at least they don't hurt anyone. They are just...kind of there. They could carry diseases like mosquitoes or sting you like bees. Yes, they do swarm around in the air, and get smashed on your windshield and the sight is quite repulsive but it could be worse. The reason for them being around so much is because it's mating season. (Jeez, They should get a room! It's called TMI. Too much information....ew. ha-ha)

They come to us during the months of may and September to haunt us in our sleep and torture us...well that was a tad bit of an exaggeration. But we are not alone! Love bugs also range in South America, Mexico and down through central America. They can also be found in Georgia and South Carolina. Lucky us....not.

People often wonder how they got their nickname, but I don't know why. It's really obvious. No offense to anyone who couldn't figure it out. What they do is love, if you know what i mean.(TMI again) They are often refereed to as "sex-crazed critters" because all they do is... well let's say re-produce to put it nicely.

Growing u in Florida I have came across my share of Love bugs. I can recall one event in particular. I ate one. Wait. That sounds bad. I didn't do it on purpose of course. That's just...wrong. (yuck)I was in kindergarten on the last day of school and we were having a huge and picnic. I needed a refill so I got up and went to the lady who was giving drinks and asked for another coke, but they were all out. All that was left was orange and grape soda. I opted for grape and when I sat back down, I saw a love bug in my drink, but it must not have processed in my brain fast enough because my dumb self drank it and then freaked. My philosophy is that it was bad karma. You see I used to catch them as a kid. Me and my sisters were washing my dad's truck one day to try and get all the smashed love bugs off the car, but alive love bugs kept bugging us. We went inside and got sandwich size zip lock baggies. We began catching them and putting them together in the baggies. They were full when the event was over. I was a kid so I didn't realize that closing the baggie meant that they would suffocate. Oopsie! ha-ha. Revenge is sweet, although i didn't know it then. =)

Look on the bright side. Today is the 30th so we don't have that much longer. Maybe they will make a holiday for the day that they all go away........I'd celebrate it...but i wouldn't be serving any grape soda. =)

-Dixie