Of Windshields and Bugs

The Obligatory May Love Bug Post

Yes, it is May, the first - and lesser - of two months of love bugs here in Florida. These things fascinate me like almost nothing else on Earth. They appear like clockwork on the first of May and disappear on June 1 (yes, there are stragglers, hush!) and then reappear for an encore in September.

This morning I had occasion to laugh out loud at the poor schmuck in front of me on my way to work. We were stopped at a portion of the road restricted to one-lane traffic (darn road construction) and he had his windows down. All of a sudden, I saw him swatting in a dozen directions at once, trying to shoo the love bugs back out the windows on both sides of the car. I didn't feel too bad for him, since the hard hat and illegal U-turn made it obvious he was working at the construction site and therefore wouldn't be in the car for too long.

During this stop, I had a pair of "loving" bugs land on my windshield. And it took a good 2 or 3 miles at 55 mph before they finally departed. It was so impressive to me I was having trouble splitting my focus between the bugs and the road. Really! The female was anchored on the glass, but the poor male was flapping in the wind like a kite with a tiny penis for a string.

And then I had a similar experience on my way home tonight. As I was getting into my car, I noticed some Jurassic-looking roach ancestor on my windshield almost exactly where the love bugs had been. I wanted to just turn on my windshield wipers, but didn't want to smear guts all over the place, so I decided to just let it ride (ha! let it ride!). This mega bug lasted much longer than I had hoped, and was actually able to walk a few steps to stop its antennae (you know, the ones the same length as its body) from flapping around. THAT creeped me out! Finally, it disengaged from the glass, and I heard a distinctive crunch as it made contact with some other part of my car. Yes. I heard it crunch. While driving. With the CD player on. I told you it was a mega bug!

Anyway, back to love bugs. According to that Wikipedia article I linked to up top, they are not the result of a UF science experiment gone wrong. Huh. You learn something new every day!