Being middle aged is bugging me

I recently turned 40, and it’s not what I expected. I never considered 40 old (a benefit of having siblings so much older than I am, which is really a benefit that keeps giving because the older I get the much older they remain…hahaha!), but I am undoubtedly middle aged, and I’m experiencing some pretty startling changes. I’m not talking about the mental, emotional, or physical maturing process. Nor am I talking about how I’ve reached the age where most greeting cards will declare me “over the hill.” If your forties are over the hill, then I’m just at the peak, and therefore, I am the top of my game! Take that greeting cards!

What I am talking about are bugs and my recently acquired disdain for the creepy crawlies.

If its butt doesn’t light up or it doesn’t fly like a helicopter, I hate them. And this is not the way things used to be. Not that I enjoyed bugs, but I didn’t mind them. But somewhere in the last twenty years, I’ve come to loathe any bug, especially, dare I say it, ants. Yes, even those cute, efficient, architects on eight legs.

First, bugs are everywhere. In the summer, you can’t walk outside without some bug bugging you. And I wouldn’t mind so much, but they just don’t seem to catch the hint they’re a bother. You can swat at a fly over and over, but it will repeatedly buzz your head. And to all you mosquitoes out there: my ears are NOT caves to explore!

Spiders. I should like spiders, given the whole “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” thing, but they make such a mess, leaving their webs all over the place (mostly wherever I walk), that it’s hard to build relations. I mean, what would you think if I erected a house in the middle of Del Webb Blvd., camped out there a few days, then left it in the middle of the road along with the carcasses of all my kills? You’d lose your patience pretty quick. For an insect that can spin silk and suck it back up, you’d think they’d economize more and tidy up after themselves, but apparently their silk supply is endless and they’ve never heard the saying “waste not want not.”

But at least spiders are transient unlike ants, who build colonies and satellite colonies, reproduce into the millions, and surround your home. Have you ever seen ants pour out of a crevice? I don’t mean scurry in mass. I literally mean pour? I have, and they don’t seem so cute anymore.

I recently read an article in the New York Times about ants. The author compared having an ant infestation to having a panic attack: it starts small the builds into a frenzy, kind of like what a lot of people make of turning 40.

I don’t even know where people came up with comparing life to a hill, anyway. I’ve kind of always associated to stairway you keep climbing. It’s not like anything gets easier, suggesting there’s a peak then a decline. But I will say this, if there is a hill of life, there are surely a frenzy of ants underneath it.

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