“It’s the wrong time to go, folks. It’s a warm spring day, but there’s a Devil Wind a-blowin’,” said a ladybug to the hundreds of others huddled together waiting for the right time to emerge from my shed.
“Eat shit, you woke pansy. I’m gonna go find a rose garden, chow some aphids and bang some spotty hotties!” said a tough-guy ladybug, revealing his feelings of inadequacy.
The wise ladybug said, “And the ocean is nearby. These winds blow from inland mountains toward the sea. As the air descends from the mountains, it compresses and warms. Literally billions of ladybugs perish at sea when these conditions occur.”
“That’s a bunch of Dumbocrat fake news,” said the tough guy. And in a small victory for evolution, the wise ladybug and his old lady, plus all her girlfriends, were the only ones who didn’t leave with the malignant narcissist ladybug.
As our tough guy struggled in the wind, he saw many ladybugs and other tiring insects. Soon he was searching for his rose garden over the blue ocean.
Exhausted, he flew too low and was hit by a breaking wave. He tumbled in the surf and washed up on the beach. He saw dozens of other ladybugs struggling to crawl or uselessly spreading their wings trying to fly. He also saw a bunch of green stink bugs, including one right next to him.
The stink bug said, “Well, I guess I should have listened to my friend. Look at how many of my brethren made the same mistake. We and many ladybugs are dying all along this beach. All I wanted was to stick my proboscis into nutritious plants and make stinky love.”
“It’s a hoax, snowflake. I’m just gonna dry my wings and fly back east when the wind dies down. I’ll be chomping aphids and mounting ladybug ladies by sunset.”
But the stink bug said, “Not only are these winds warm, they are very dry. As the sinking air compresses under the higher atmospheric pressure at lower elevation, its relative humidity goes down,” repeating things a wise stink bug had told him. “So, your body will dry, but the salt doesn’t evaporate.”
“That’s a lefty climate change conspiracy theory,” said the soon-to-be salt-bound tough guy. “You lemmings will believe anything your overlords on NPR say.”
“Do you see a single insect flying away?” said the stink bug. “Some of us have been here for hours and still cannot fly. We are dehydrated and our wings are bound by salt crystals.”
Another wave-tumbled ladybug washed up and said, “This is Joe Biden’s fault.”
The stink bug continued, “Scientists have studied these mass insect strandings. Like my wise friend tried to tell me, the east wind can result in the deaths of literally billions of insects in a single day. Ladybugs are one of the primary victims. And weaker flyers like my species commonly get swept up in it as well. They also found that some species of ladybugs can float for weeks and survive, but only if it’s in fresh water. It’s the salt that’s going to cause us to die as hungry virgins.”
The tough guy said, “Yeah, some egghead ladybug tried to feed me that bullshit, too.”
“Wait,” said the stink bug. “You’re telling me that with all this evidence of your tragic mistake right in front of you, you still don’t believe you were wrong?”
Elsewhere a day later, the wise ladybug feasted on aphids and copulated with his old lady and all her girlfriends. And all the salty insects were shared equitably by scavenging socialist crustaceans. l
Biologist Mike Kelly (he/him) is also the author of the book Tigerfish: Traditional and Sport Fishing on the Niger River, Mali, West Africa. It’s available at Amazon or everywhere e-books are sold.
This article appears in In it for the Glory.