Bugging You

Just tonight I was walking Lewis amidst groups of bats flitting two and fro through the dusky night sky. Coming upon the "swimming hole" (euphemism for a slow part in the river, dammed and filled with mosquito larvae), many bats skimmed the surface. Repeatedly they skimmed and circled, skimmed and circled, presumably consuming some kind of gnat hovering just about the still water.

While Lewis fearlessly plunged into the water, bats barely missing him as they swooped by, I kept my distance, covering my mouth and hoping my hair was sufficiently plastered to my head in a such a way as not to snare a bat if one were to swish by my head.

In spite of my half-hearted attempts to protect myself from a bat entering an orifice or getting stuck in my hair, I would not have been surprised had one ran into me. After all, I'm decent sized in comparison to a bat. And there were lots of bats. And though they have their little sonar thing going, they have been known to run into things. This diatribe is leading somewhere, so please only remember this: it would have been understandable if a bat had run into me.

There are other times when I can be walking along on a warm summer evening, and I see a rather large swarm of gnat-like things hovering around in a group. Logic would serve that if I walk into that group of gnats, I may get a gnat on me. I may inhale a gnat. A gnat may go up my nose.

I Walla Walla, when school starts in early fall, these curious bugs with blue fuzz on their butts start to fly all over the place. As a friend of mine once learned during blue-butted bug season: ride your bike in a swarm of blue-butted bugs, spend 20 minutes picking blue-butted bugs off your sweatshirt.

And . . . this is the grand finale. If there is a large group of something and you walk into it, you may physically encounter at least one element of that group. But this is my question of the night. Why, when I am out mowing the lawn, does one single, solitary gnat or little fly or something fly around in front of my face the entire time? Out of the infinity of atmosphere this one bug could inhabit, it chooses to inhabit the two inches in front of my face. For an extended period of time. No matter how much I try to wave it away. Forever will I be confused by this phenomenon.