BUGS AND PRAYER (a true story)

Around Seattle’s Puget Sound area, you suffer six-plus months of gray, drizzly (seldom rainy) weather over the Fall and Winter. In exchange for that, you receive nearly six months of guaranteed sunshine, each and every day. Seattle summers are the best kept secret in the states—except maybe from all the people flocking here each year.

I call it “flipping the switch”. Once the switch flips, you get what weather you’ve got. For another six months.

According to the weather reports (and my instincts), the switch would be flipped the next day. So that ultimate, late afternnoon in September, I sat on the porch, reading a book. A last chance for some quality me time with nature. I perspired into my sweatpants as the late afternoon sun angled in on me—perfectly content. 

Suddently, I was started by a load BUuzzZZPP!! A bug flew past my head and landed right on my chest. There, between me and my book sat a large stink bug, flecked with its splotchy gray-black camouflague. 

A flash of anger rose through me, mostly at my annoyance at being even momentarily scared. “Really?” I said to him. And I lifted one hand to flick him away. 

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