I like to think I am a fairly nice person. I consider myself an eternal optimist and I prove it by being a gardener.
I am not a good gardener, but I am patient as death and persevere through the Oklahoma challenges to growing things.
However, some of those challenges really disprove the nice person image I try to cultivate. I hate squash bugs. Really, really hate them.
I get all green eyed and every afternoon I spray my plants down with neem oil. It’s one of those things that bugs avoid. I try to garden kindly and not damage the environment. I even spray in the afternoons so that it doesn't disturb the bees that sometimes come to visit the flowers and squash blossoms.
But did I mention I really, really hate squash bugs? In addition to turning green eyed and slightly demonic, (ok I think I probably sprout horns and a tail) I go a little berserk and use language that would never get printed in this paper. I call squash bugs everything but a creation of God.
Then, when they are saturated with neem oil spray and trying to vacate the squash premises, I snatch them off the stalks, leaves or flowers and snap them in two. Sometimes I drop them on the ground and dance the Watusi on them, grinding the dead bodies into the soil. I especially love catching the ones who are mated so I get a two for one kill.
I like to think the bugs have nightmares about me, like I’m their version of John Wick. I’m worse than their worse nightmares.
My fat, round, red-hot little face and frantic graying hair is the last thing those little b*@$!$%s see before they die.
Oh, occasionally a few make it out of reach and live to die another day. Yes, I know that’s James Bond, not John Wick. But wouldn’t you think the news would get around the bug grapevine and they would go somewhere they are a little more likely to survive the day? Where someone isn’t after them every single day, where they aren’t under threat of death or having the chickens turned out on them?
But no, they persist. I recently found them in my unintentional pumpkin. I didn’t mean to plant a pumpkin, but there it is. The fruit under the leaves was covered with squash bugs. I drowned them in neem oil and those who made it to the life rafts were summarily pinched into pieces or danced into dirt.
I am fully aware they will repopulate by afternoon, when once again I will reload and wade into battle. But it is a fairly harmless pastime. It keeps me off the streets and out of the pool halls.
Harmless, that is, unless you’re a squash bug. Then it’s on.