SPIDERS vs. EARWIGS

I’m a little obsessive about bugs. I’m not ashamed to say it. For example, something that just landed on my keyboard made me jump literally out of my seat. What might it have been? A spider? I like spiders. But, I still don’t like when one lands on me unexpectedly. I don’t like thinking for one second that it has the upper hand over me. It has successfully invaded my private space. It has neglected to respect my higher status in the natural order. My world – the universe – has been turned upside down. I must accept and concede defeat. I’m not a good loser.

Irony has molded my life experience in this way. Summer is my favorite season. It is also a tough time for me due to the ongoing epic battle between my bug-phobic self and my dreaded nemeses – earwigs. I don’t know. I just hate ‘em. And somewhere early on in life I decided they were the vilest of vile insects, topping even cockroaches and grubs who came in at sloppy second and third.
Maybe it’s because they are insulting to my aesthetic sense. Those pincer tails raised and curled - eeeewwww…or the fact that they move so fast they virtually disappear before the eyes as they scurry and scamper away from daylight like shrunken mutated nosferatu. In this sense, perfectly repulsive as they are, they are indelibly etched in my psyche and cause me considerable emotional anguish.

So, maybe there is a great lesson to be learned.

Earwigs are basically decomposers in the food chain. And no, contrary to the early European belief, they do not crawl into the ears of sleeping people and bore into their brains. They do provide a necessary and good service in the overall scheme of things, I suppose. But sometimes there are entirely too many of them around for my own personal sense of security and comfort. I don’t like thinking they might be crawling all over me at night trying to get to a crumb that fell into my tee-shirt, or that they might scurry out of a dishtowel and up my arm one morning before I’ve had my first cup of coffee…I don’t react well to those types of surprises. I entirely lose it, scream, cry -- it’s not a pretty sight.

Spiders, on the other hand, have earned my respect and admiration. Unlike the scavenging, plundering, intrusive earwig, the spider is a selective hunter, an artisan, a crafter. And it's not an insect at all. It's an arachnid. An ally. For someone who abhors many bugs, the way I do, the spider provides a particularly valuable service, and one at little or no charge, since I would be tempted to hire a professional exterminator, had they not been quite so efficient and plentiful.

So, what I’ve found, in the ultimate battle of the bugs is that I’ve had to do very little, myself, but refrain from squashing the spiders. They are terrific earwig exterminators and as far as I’ve been able to observe, they always win.