My daughter Kira has never made friends with insects. From the time she was a toddler, Kira displayed an innate fear of small dark things. When she was less than 2, Kira was toddling in our kitchen wearing one of the many vintage hats we kept in our dress-up box. A small black feather, dislodged from one of the hats, was dancing gently on the floor near the refrigerator, animated by a light draft.
Kira cringed in terror, screaming at the feather. From that moment on, I never scoffed when someone described or displayed a fear of insects or spiders. I learned firsthand from Kira how fear looks.
In her early elementary years, ants were scariest in Kira’s eyes. Despite her fear, Kira joined nature club, reared monarch butterflies and praying mantids, and even dressed a tomato hornworm caterpillar in Barbie clothes as she cajoled the lumbering creature to perform gymnastic feats on a “high wire.” This was, however, more a cease-fire than a lasting truce as Kira’s fear of insects expanded to include wasps and spiders.
Longtime readers will recall my story about packing the car with Kira’s belongings to move her into her college dorm in Boston with a stowaway spider inside. Thankfully my husband spotted the spider moments before our departure (and without Kira’s knowledge), saving us from a full-blown behind-the-wheel panic attack.
Many of Kira’s texts from college have had an insect theme. As parents of college students quickly learn, texting is an easy way to stay in touch and is easier to time than phone calls. Some of Kira’s texts to me have run along these lines:
Q: Big ugly long legged bug crawling across my floor. Afraid to get out of bed!
A: Sounds like a house centipede. Predators, not interested in you. Smash with shoe.
Q: Dorm down the street has bedbugs. Need to worry?
A: Doesn’t mean yours has them. Check mattress when changing sheets.
Q: Apartment kitchen has small moths flying around. What to do?
A: Indian meal moths. Clean kitchen, all food into hard plastic, toss old mixes and spices.
Q: Mouse seen in kitchen. How to proceed?
A: Just one? How about a sticky trap? Can you deal with a live, stuck mouse?
Q: Fruit flies near bananas.
A: Take fruit off counter, clean dishes in sink, get roommates to do the same.
Q: Fruit flies at work. Lots of them.
A: Could be drain flies. They live in pipe scum. Look at one up close to ID.
Just as all parents hope will happen during a child’s academic career, Kira has grown and matured in her years at Boston University. Now a senior majoring in neuroscience and a shift manager at a hipster coffee house, Kira balances her work, academic and social lives. Just as she has come to terms with the many demands on her time and energy, she has mellowed (somewhat) about insects.
This summer, Kira rented a sublet room in an apartment with friends from work. Kira called me last week asking what a bedbug bite looks like. She woke up with a single red, itchy welt on her leg.
After discussing how to scout for bedbugs (none seen) and signs of bedbug infestations (none seen as well), we considered the option that this isolated bite could be a spider bite. Kira decided to continue to scout for signs of bedbugs for the remaining two weeks she’d be in the apartment, and we discussed ways to protect her belongings to prevent any possible movement of bedbugs into her new apartment, such as using a bedbug-proof mattress protector and running dry clothes through a 30-minute cycle in a hot dryer.
“I’m so relieved,” said Kira, toward the end of our conversation. “I can handle a spider, knowing there might only be one or two in my room.”
I had to smile, thinking how far she’s come, with spiders and in so many other ways.
My little girl, nearly all grown up.
Denise Ellsworth directs the honeybee and native pollinator education program for Ohio State University. If you have questions about caring for your garden, contact her at 330-263-3723 or ellsworth.2@osu.edu. Her blog is at Blog is https://u.osu.edu/thebuzz.