What Does It Mean If Bugs Ignore You?

AJ Teaters

What Does It Mean If Bugs Ignore You?

Am I invisible?! Now I know how those kids who like Magic The Gathering felt in High School. I literally had a bug (A BIG BUG, like the size of a Cessna) fly into my face! I was walking out of the mall and I had just started going up the walk way when *BAM* it happened:


I saw it, it was like a ninja jumping from a pagoda with his sword drawn ready to disembowel me (to have some continuity with my previous simile, it would have been a ninja the size of a small plane) flying straight for my face! Let me tell you something, there are a barrage of thoughts that go through your mind when something like this happens to person. They are very similar to the 5 Stages of Grief:

1. Denial: there isn't a cadillac sized bug about to run into my face!

2. Anger: screw you bug! You ain't flying into my face!

3. Bargaining: I'll give you this shirt I just bought if you don't fly into my face.

4. Depression: I can't believe this bug is going to my into my face. Why me of all people?! Can life get any worse, I submit that it cannot!

5. Acceptance: all right, if this bug is going to hit me in the face I'm gonna take it like a man.


Ok, so those were EXACTLY the 5 stages of grief. I would be tempted to call up Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and ask if she could change her theory to "The 5 Stages of Grief & attacks from bugs the size of a Cessna" has a certain ring to it, no?


I would like to say that I went through all 5 stages quickly and effortlessly, but to no avail. The first 4 weren't a problem, and with my adrenaline pumping the world seemed to slow down and give me enough time to process each stage. When I got to stage 5 I hit "the wall". I knew I had to bust through and get to the other side to cone out with minimal physical and psychological damage.


However that didn't happen. I buckled... folded like an 18th century Chinese laundry service. I couldn't close, I thought to myself, this must be what Lebron felt like in the NBA Finals. I pulled a Buckner, but the bug didn't bounce through my legs... It hit me square in the face! AND, instead of sucking it up, taking it like a man and walking it off, I went into "fight or flight mode". What happened next I would like to chalk up to my even-keeled and balanced attitude because I chose neither fully fight or flight.


I went into evasive maneuvering!


Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge (thanks Patches O'Houlihan, who says you don't learn from Hollywood senseless comedy movies?!) So like I was saying: dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge with a little scream/squeal/battle-cry and spinning pirouette. All this to say and it did nothing to prevent this bug from hitting me in the face. But it did probably give the elderly couple behind me something to talk about over dinner the next few nights.