One of the best things about doing this blog has been the fascinating people I’ve gotten to meet. There was Karma the glass blower, Cindini the fearless, Jimmy the beekeeper, and, most recently, Jayme the bug guy. I first met Jayme a few months back when I attempted to confront my fear of bugs at a local bug exhibit. Jayme was the man in a chef’s coat who somehow convinced me to chow down on a cinnamon sugar cricket. As it turns out, however, his skills extend far beyond bug cookery; he’s actually a practicing entomologist and the Director of Animal and Visitor Programs at the Audubon Insectarium. After I finally managed to choke down the cricket’s exoskeleton, we got to talking, and he suggested that I take confronting my fear of bugs to the next level. If I came out to New Orleans, he would take me on a private tour of the Insectarium, and, in what is perhaps the most horrifying phrase in history, take me on a bug-collecting trip where I would encounter a “bug tornado.”
I’m going to be honest—I’m of the opinion that there are few things on the face of this earth that sound as horrible as a bug tornado. For me, the list would go something like this: 1. Starring in a real-life version of Saw, 2. Having to amputate my own arm while trapped in a cave like that guy in 127 Hours, 3. Living in a world where all music is composed by members of The Real Housewives, and 4. Being trapped in a bug tornado. I mean, seriously, it’s a bug tornado. That’s a tornado…made of bugs. It is, without a doubt, one of the craziest, most terrifying things I can possibly imagine. Unfortunately, this also means that I have absolutely no choice but to do it, so I hop in the car and make the ten-hour trek to New Orleans.
I meet up with Jayme at noon to grab a quick bite to eat before touring the Insectarium. The food is ridiculously amazing—whoever thought of putting red beans and rice in a bread bowl really should receive some sort of medal—and it’s definitely a nice change from the bug-infested food he served me the last time I saw him. Once we’ve finished feasting on pure deliciousness, we leave the restaurant and head over to the Insectarium. Immediately, I am in awe of how big the place is. It’s housed in the bottom floor of the old US Custom House, an absolutely stunning, rather imposing building that’s been designated a National Historic Landmark. I don’t know exactly what I was expecting, but this definitely isn’t it. These bugs are living in a building that looks like it was designed to house the Pope or vintage couture—really just about anything except hissing cockroaches and dung beetles.
When I walk inside, however, it starts to make sense. The museum is gorgeous, and, much to my surprise, so are the bugs. There are shiny, metallic beetles, bubble-gum pink katydids, and stunningly beautiful butterflies. They look perfectly at home in the midst of this exceptional architecture. Jayme is a spectacular tour guide; he is so excited about every bug in his collection, and his enthusiasm is infectious. Suddenly, and much to my immense surprise, I find myself excited by leaf bugs and heartbroken about endangered beetles. I’m rooting for a distressed ant colony and marveling at moths. As someone whose previous emotional responses to insects were limited to standing on a couch and screaming bloody murder until they crawled away from the sofa, this is inexpressibly strange. Still, when you see them crawling around in their little plexi-glass containers all sweet and innocent, it’s nearly impossible not to fall in love with them. By the time we reach the interactive bug movie, complete with a bugified Jay Leno (giant chin and all) and a variety of bug-inspired special effects, I am completely hooked. When we reach Bug Appétit and Jayme encourages me to try their creepy crawly confections, my disgust at eating a cricket is replaced by the guilt I usually associate with eating meat. Still, I feel like I should try something, so I opt for a chocolate chirp cookie. It is surprisingly delicious, which I think is irrefutable proof that anything tastes good when combined with chocolate and cookie dough.
After watching a quick movie on love bugs projected onto the window of a Volkswagen that, due to its lack of front seats, was driven to the Insectarium by people sitting in lawn chairs and taking a quick trip through a gorgeous room full of stunning architecture and beautifully mounted preserved insects, it’s on to the super special part of the tour. This particular part of the tour is not open to the general public, which means that, as a “special guest,” I get to hold a number of bugs that are usually off limits. I start off small with a couple of beetles—patent leather beetles and ox beetles to be exact. They’re disturbingly large, and I can feel the hairs on their little legs gripping my hands. It is exceedingly bizarre, but they’re kind of cute in their own weird way. There’s a distinct possibility that one of them may have pooped on me, but, in the interest of not undoing all the progress I’ve done today, I’m choosing to believe it’s just dirt that he transferred from his case. Next, Jayme hands me a leaf bug. This one’s significantly bigger than the beetles, in fact, he’s bigger than my hand, but he’s also significantly cuter. The bug looks exactly like a leaf. He has a giant leaf body, little leaf arms and leaf legs; if I wasn’t looking into his itty bitty eyes, I would not, in a million years, believe he was a bug. It’s really extraordinary actually. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but, as it turns out, bugs are kind of amazing.
After the leaf bug, Jayme has Zack introduce me to Harriet the tarantula. As I’ve mentioned before, I am not a fan of spiders, and the fact that this looks like the spider that ate all other spiders really isn’t helping. However, it’s hard not to get at least a little excited about anything Zack shows you. As Jayme put it, he’s the entomologist version of Steve Irwin. The passion this man has about his work is undeniable. He looks at spiders and ants and beetles the way most women look at sapphires and rubies and diamonds. As creeped out as I am about the fact that this man is about to place a giant arachnid in my hand, I’m finding it impossible not to smile when I listen to Zack talk about it. He gently scoops Harriet up from the box she’s in and asks that I place my hand under his hand. Next, he tells Harriet to give me a high-five, and she reaches one of her little legs down and taps me on the hand. It’s adorable. It’s also sort of extraordinary. I mean, seriously, how many people can say they’ve been high-fived by a tarantula?
Next, Zack places Harriet in the palm of my hand and encourages me to bring my hands up to my face for a photo. As horrified as I am by the thought of placing a tarantula next to my face, I decide to go for it. After all, it should make for an excellent picture. Harriet is a perfect angel; she just sits there looking at me with a sweet, almost bemused expression. I’m in awe of how much I’m not hating this. In fact, when Zack picks her back up, I’m almost sad to see her go. Almost. For someone who has a nervous breakdown at the mere sight of a microscopic spider, this is a huge accomplishment. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t want to come home and find Harriet sitting on my couch or sleeping on my pillow, but under Zack’s supervision in the safety of the Insectarium, it’s actually not so bad.
Harriet concludes the insect holding portion of my afternoon, and, after a quick visit to their butterfly garden, it’s time to run back to the hotel and get ready for the bug tornado. According to Jayme, we’ll be going down to the bayou where we’ll set up a 1,000 watt light bulb and watch as the bugs come in for miles. This already sounded horrifying, but Jayme’s description this afternoon, which included the phrase “bugs up your nose,” is making it infinitely worse. He’s already been featured on Dirty Jobs, and apparently this is the activity he’s selected in case they ever film a sequel. This does not bode well. I’m looking forward to hanging out with Jayme, and I know it will be great for the blog, but still, I really don’t want to do this. Unfortunately, it’s way too late to back out now, so I have no choice but to change my clothes and head down to the bayou. I had asked Jayme earlier in the week about what to wear, and he suggested pants and a lightweight, long-sleeved shirt. He recommends going with dark colors because the bugs will be less likely to land on something dark. I can do dark clothes, but what about my skin? I make Casper the Ghost look tan. Does this mean the bugs are just going to be landing all over my face? I sincerely considered getting a spray tan in what would, no doubt, have been a misguided attempt to keep the bugs away, but I realized that unless, tanning salons can now change your ethnicity, there was really very little I could do. So, my white skin and I get in the car, say a quick prayer, and leave.
I’m supposed to meet Jayme and approximately twenty other bug enthusiasts at a restaurant about half an hour away in a town called Des Allemands. Honestly, I can’t believe there are two people who voluntarily want to experience a bug tornado, much less twenty, and yet, here they are. They’re also surprisingly normal and incredibly friendly. Jayme meets me outside the restaurant and ushers me inside where I sit at one end of an exceptionally long table next to him and across from a ridiculously adorable six-year-old named Lavinia. Lavinia is completely obsessed with bugs. She has a collection of beetles, a pet tarantula, and a colony of Madagascar hissing cockroaches. At one point, she had a pet scorpion that she named “fingers” because fingers were its favorite thing to munch on, but she eventually got tired of getting bitten by a scorpion and gave it away. She spends most of the dinner telling us about her different bugs, and Jayme teaches her a handful of Latin names. It’s positively precious.
In many ways, it’s a fairly ordinary dinner. There are French fries and popcorn shrimp, sodas and pleasant conversation. It feels downright normal until I look to my left and remember that, in addition to all of the lovely people, I’m also having dinner with a bug. A Hardwood Stump Borer to be exact. He is sitting in a small collection container next to my water glass. Much to my surprise, no one seems to find this strange, and I’m not just talking about the bug people, even the waitress is completely nonplussed. You would think that most restaurateurs would be a little uncomfortable with the idea of keeping a Hardwood Stump Borer on the dinner table, but you would be wrong. Maybe it’s a Louisiana thing, but I seem to be the only one who finds this strange, which, I suppose is nice for the stump borer—he seems to really be enjoying watching me eat shrimp.
Once the Hardwood Stump Borer and I are done with dinner, we all drive out to a property on Bayou Gauche to set up the lights. It’s going to take a little while before we’ve got the lights up and running, so several of the entomologists decide to do some independent collecting. This seems particularly insane to me. It was bad enough when the bugs were coming to us; somehow it seems so much crazier to seek them out yourself. Moreover, it’s dark, and I have no flashlight. Still, I’ve committed to the experience, so I latch on to a nearby entomologist and set out to discover bugs. I’m about three steps in when someone says, “By the way, there’s a lot of snakes out there, which isn’t really a big deal, but we did spot a water moccasin, so, you know, keep an eye out for that.” Call me crazy, but, seriously, on what planet is “a lot of snakes” not a big deal? In my book, a snake is always a big deal, but “snakes” plural? That’s a huge, honking, gigantic freaking deal. Additionally, the girl next to me keeps pointing out all of the alligator eyes in the nearby water, which is doing absolutely nothing to calm me down. So, here I am, walking through an alligator infested crawfish pond in the middle of the night with only a shared flashlight to guide me, dodging snakes and hunting for bugs. I’ve done a lot of crazy things this year, but this is rapidly rising to the top of the list.
Fortunately, my flashlight buddy soon tires of the expedition, so we return to safer ground to watch Jayme set up the light. There really aren’t words to describe how bright this light is. At 1,000 watts, it’s like staring at the surface of the sun. I’m desperately trying to avoid glancing in its general direction for fear it will decimate my corneas with its death ray of light, but, at the same time, it’s sort of like a car accident—I can’t seem to bring myself to look away. Jayme has propped the light up on a frame that stands a bit taller than I do. Below it, he has draped a large white sheet that is flanked on either side by more lights. Apparently, the bugs will be drawn to the light and then land on the sheet. Once that happens, we can investigate them, determine whether or not the Insectarium needs them, and, if they do, collect them. Since I’m not exactly a bug expert, I have no way of knowing what bugs they do and don’t want, so I’m mostly just planning on watching. Honestly, I feel like resisting the urge to run away screaming is going to take all the energy I have.
At first, nothing really happens. I’m waiting for the bug tornado, the flurry of insects Jayme warned me would be crawling in my nose, mouth, and pretty much any other really unpleasant place you can think of, but they don’t seem to be coming. For a brief moment, I relax. There’s a bug here and there, but it’s definitely not a bug tornado. It’s barely a bug drizzle. And then, it happens. As if out of nowhere, the bugs descend upon us like some sort of Biblical plague. Were we living in Exodus, even the locusts would be like, “Dude, we have to get out of here. It’s just way too crowded.” I raise my head to look up at the sky and am astounded by how much it looks like a snowstorm. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was looking at snowflakes, not bugs. For a brief moment, I’m in awe of how beautiful it is, so much so, that I’ve temporarily forgotten the fact that I’m standing in the middle of a bug tornado. The spell is quickly interrupted, however, when one of those bugs flies straight in to my open mouth.
There’s something about having a live bug in your mouth that really makes you acutely aware of your surroundings, although I suspect this might have happened anyways because the bugs are coming and they are coming fast. There is a massive moth on my pants leg. There are several bugs in my hair, some of which I didn’t even find until I got back to the hotel that night. One of the bugs flew down my top before getting stuck in my bra and bouncing around in there like a cat trapped in a bag. I’m afraid to even look down for fear of what I may find crawling all over me. It is positively horrifying.
Everyone else, however, seems to be of the opinion that this is the most amazing thing in the history of the world. Forget the invention of the wheel or the development of sliced bread, for them, this bug-collecting set-up is the greatest creation of all time. One of the men is particularly excited by his finds and keeps bringing them over to show me. Unfortunately, he keeps catching incredibly creepy bugs with truly terrifying names. For example, on more than one occasion, he came over to show me an assassin bug he’d found. I don’t mean to be difficult, and I really am trying to embrace this whole experience, but honestly, if the word “assassin” is part of its name, I don’t want to see it. In fact, I don’t want to be within ten miles of it, and I certainly don’t want to be in the middle of an assassin bug tornado. I know I’m surrounded by entomologists, but still, how is it possible that I am the only person here who feels that way? For heaven’s sake, they clearly call it an “assassin bug” for a reason.
Beginning to sense my concern, one of the other entomologists encourages me to come over and take a look at a puss moth. Apparently, as caterpillars they are incredibly dangerous, but when they emerge as moths, they become cute, harmless, and furry. The entomologist encourages me to pet him so I can feel how soft and fuzzy he is. Obligingly, I gently place my hand on the moth. It’s like petting a down pillow in a fur pillowcase. It’s actually kind of cute. Unfortunately, as it turns out, I petted the poor thing a bit too vigorously and bits of his fur are now stuck to my finger. I feel terrible, but, on the other hand, it’s not like I took a bug petting class in college. I’m not exactly a moth-petting expert. Plus, minus his suddenly thinning hair, the moth seems okay, so I figure that, if this is the worst thing I do tonight, I’m doing pretty well.
I stand there, staring at the bugs and watching them crawl all over me for nearly two hours before we decide to move on to something else. There’s another light set up about a mile away, so we hop in Zack’s truck and head down there. It’s almost 11:00, and little six-year-old Lavinia is still going strong. She’s wearing long sleeves, gloves, and a mosquito-netting hat, which is already making her the cutest thing I’ve ever seen. She is absolutely covered in bugs, and every few minutes she runs up to show me her latest catch. She is so darn cute I almost don’t mind the fact that she’s basically a walking insectarium by this point. Shortly after Lydia shows me her fifth tiger moth, Zack comes over to show me his latest find. While he was going to the bathroom, he used his flashlight to look for bugs—you know, like you do when you go to the bathroom. At some point, he found a dragonfly, which he then decided to catch and bring back to show me. On his way back, he found a shed snakeskin. He is beyond excited by the find, but he’s slightly depressed that it doesn’t seem to have a spider inside. Of course he is. ‘Cause I know that whenever I find a snake skin, my first thought is, “Gosh, I sure hope there’s a spider in here.” As I’m thinking about how completely insane this is, he raises the skin up and shows me that, much to his delight, he was wrong—there is a spider in this snakeskin. I don’t really know what to do with this. There is a spider in a snakeskin. It don’t know which of these items is presently freaking me out more, but I can tell you with absolute certainty that it is all I can do not to climb out of my own skin. It is, without a doubt, one of the creepiest thing’s I’ve ever seen. Zack, however, is over the moon, and it’s hard not to be at least a little excited for him. So, I hand Jayme my camera, step back to a safe distance, and admire it from afar. As I’m standing a few feet away, hoping that Zack doesn’t find the snake from which the skin came, Gordon, one of the other bug enthusiasts, comes over and tells me it’s time for the next water collection. I know very little about the water collection aside from the fact that we’ll be going out on a boat and looking for bugs. I’m not super excited about it, but it means getting away from the bug tornado, so I figure it can’t possibly be that bad.
Oh, how naïve I was. It can absolutely be that bad. Jayme has craftily neglected to tell me about this portion of the evening, and I’m starting to understand why. We’re going out on a special kind of boat designed for use in extremely shallow water, and it only comes about a foot out of the water. I’m sitting at the front of the boat, which means anything that feels like climbing into the boat will most likely do so by crawling into my lap. The second I step into this thing, I regret this decision. It’s cold, windy, and I’m sailing across God knows what in a glorified tin can. Still, I don’t want to be rude. They’ve been so kind to let me tag along; I don’t want to do anything to disrespect that. Plus, my two boat-mates, entomologist Kaitlin and intern Matt, are both so excited that I don’t really have the heart to say anything. So, I take a deep breath and start desperately praying that I won’t spend the night in the belly of an alligator.
The farther out we go on the water, the crazier this is feeling. This seems like precisely the place you would go if you wanted to dump a body. It’s the kind of location forensic science television shows only dream about. There are alligators everywhere, and the place is so isolated that my GPS was convinced it didn’t exist. Someone could come here, kill all twenty of us, and then walk away scot-free. I am, however, quickly distracted by my thoughts about all the ways someone could murder me by the realization that murdering us would be completely unnecessary since we are all about to get ourselves killed. Apparently, in addition to catching water scorpions, we’re also going to be catching alligators. At least that’s the goal anyway. It’s the single craziest thing I’ve ever heard, and it’s rapidly becoming the single craziest thing I’ve ever seen. We’re boating around with flashlights on our heads looking for alligator eyes, and then, instead of running in the opposite direction, we’re gunning straight for them. Since I am in the front of the boat, that means Gordon is steering me face first into a gator. Actually, he’s steering me face first into several alligators. Gordon estimates that there are 500-700 of them in this particular area. I am clearly starting to have an aneurysm, and my anxiety is not remotely assuaged by Gordon’s announcement that the worst most of them can do is take off one of my fingers. At one point, a five footer swims under our boat, and intern Matt actually begins lamenting the fact that he failed to catch it and fling it into the boat. I think I’m going to have a heart attack.
Fortunately, we don’t succeed in catching any alligators. I say fortunately because I am quite pleased by the lack of alligators in our tiny boat, but the rest of the group was really disappointed. I felt sort of bad for them until I remembered that they could always try and catch another alligator, but I can’t ever grow another finger. As such, I’m really quite glad our alligator hunt was unsuccessful. Next, we move on to a frog hunt. Gordon locates a bullfrog by the bank and suggests that I lean out of the boat, stick my hands in the alligator-infested water, and scoop him up. At first, I’m convinced that he’s joking, but he most definitely is not. The last thing on earth I want to do is stick my hands in this water and fetch a frog, but they’re all looking at me so expectantly. My parents prepared me for the drugs and alcohol peer pressure, but the catch a frog peer pressure? I have no idea what to do with this one. I’m really trying to be a good sport, so, terrified though I am, I reach into the water and grab the frog. He’s absolutely enormous, and I have to hold him so tight to keep him from getting away that I’m worried his eyeballs are going to squeeze out of his head like one of those gross key chains. He’s slimy, and he looks less than pleased with my decision to squeeze him like this, but other than that, it’s not so bad. Plus, Kaitlin and Matt are being incredibly supportive and encouraging, so I feel sort of proud of myself. After a few minutes and a couple of pictures, we decide to release him back into the water, at which point Gordon instructs me to wash my hands in the water before we move on. I’m torn between my desire not to have my fingers amputated by an alligator and my desire not to get salmonella from a frog. Ultimately, I decide that I can live without the finger, so I stick my hands in the water and try to wash off the frog germs. Fortunately, I manage to keep all of my fingers and avoid salmonella. This night is starting to look up.
After about an hour, we head back to the dock and catch a handful of water scorpions. I’m exceptionally bad at spotting them (they’re really tiny and the lighting is bad), so intern Matt is kind enough to find them for me and then point my net in the right direction. With his help, I’m doing pretty well, but, so far, I’m refusing to touch them. Poor Matt just has to keep sticking his hand in the net, fishing them out, and putting them into the containers for me. At some point though, I start to feel like it’s cheating. I’ve already high-fived a tarantula, witnessed a bug tornado, and hunted alligators; I really can’t stop now. So, when Kaitlin catches the next water scorpion, I ask her to let me put him in the container. I’m not loving the idea of holding anything with the word “scorpion” in its name, but I decide to go for it anyway. I gently grab the little sucker from Kaitlin and drop him in his new home. Thankfully, the scorpion decides not to attack, and I decide not to push my luck trying to grab another one. I’ve accomplished what I set out to do, so I think I’ll leave the collecting to Matt and Kaitlin from here on out.
Once we’ve caught a fair amount of water scorpions, we climb out of the boat and head back to our cars. I’m really quite proud of myself. I’ve done things today I never would have thought possible. Sure, I’ll likely be picking bugs out of my hairbrush for a week, and I don’t want to even think about how many different ways I could have died tonight, but it was worth it. The bayou was unbelievably gorgeous, and it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. In addition to spending time with some really fantastic people, I stepped so far out of my comfort zone tonight that I couldn’t even see the comfort zone anymore, and I survived. Maybe now, the next time a bug lands on my front door, I’ll be able to open it instead of spending half an hour hiding in the car. Maybe. At the very least, I think I’ll be able to walk by a moth without screaming so loudly the neighbors think I’m being murdered. It’s all about the baby steps.
