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buggy
by James Lineberger |
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i worry sometimes that i might actually get to the point where i would be required to put up or shut up. this business about bugs for instance. what if. and don't you laugh. what if somebody broke in your place and you woke up to find him kneeling over you with a knife in one hand and a live cricket in the other. and he's saying okay shithead you or the bug. who will live and who will die. where does reality begin? jimmy carter writes poetry too. reads it on tv. it doesn't seem to drive him crazy though. and somehow i just know if a cricket was in his living room chirping for its life jimmy wouldn't let it fuck him up at all. before he'd let it mess with his head he'd stomp the little booger dead. even something cute as a cricket that wouldn't every hurt anybody. goddamnit. now i have one of those headaches again. i hate problems i hate 'em. two days ago, i got really upset with my manager at the store when she stomped the guts out of a snout bug. snout bugs are good too. snout bugs are second cousins to the crickets. and i told her so but she just laughed. when she wasn't looking i took the little body outside and laid it on a leaf and floated it off in the rain. i guess today is just one of those days where things come to a head. i know what did it. the orkin man. the orkin man paid us a visit this morning doesn't come by in the middle of the night any more to do his dirty work: they've quit spraying altogether. trying to save the environment, they say. hah. so now what they do is hang these little sticky triangles everywhere so when a bug gets caught and dies in the stuff the orkin man can come by later and take a survey. but he doesn't have to watch what goes on. he doesn't have to come back till the bugs are long gone. it's us that have to give witness. watch them struggle in the goo. pull their little legs off trying to get loose. what kind of goddamn way is that to have to die? would i trade my life for that cricket? i'm ready, i tell you. get out your knife, motherfucker. bring it on. |
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