Nurture Vs Nature

Today I was confronted by a rather large March fly at my desk at work.
When I say 'rather large' I am of course being stoic in regards to the whole situation.
This thing was a monster.
Like, huge.
Needless to say I freaked out appropriately.

Caught completely unawares, my jaw slackened allowing my mouthful of soup to do as it pleased, which incidentally was dribble down my chin.

I grabbed all my belongings and moved them farthest away from this flying germ-infested blood sucker and huddled near them, frightened witless clutching my cup of lukewarm soup.

It could've totally eaten my face off.

Better yet, it could've pierced my eyes out with it's biting bits and laid it's babies in my eye sockets to feed on my brains as they hatched into wiggly larvae.

Oh, this was indeed most awful.

Before you dismiss me as a pansy/ princess/ sook, I beg you to consider my point of view.

I grew up in Melbourne suburbia, where the nastiest insect around was a daddy long legs.
Insects weren't and never really will be part of my joie de vivre.

I wasn't the kind of kid that had butchy boys tangled through my hair or a handful of worms.
It just didn't do it for me.

However, there was a time, many moons ago, when I had my own caterpillar pet I had met in the school playground. That was until one morning I woke up, looked at it and freaked the hell out! I let it free in the backyard where my cat promptly devoured it. I do still have nightmares about my (unintentionally) callous act.

The way I see it is we've been so out of touch with nature, with the things that just lived. They are doing what every cell in their body is programmed to do.
Eat.
Sleep.
Make babies.
Die.

Just doing innate stuff.

Here we are, with our pressed pants, perfect hair dos and little minds and not before long we are a bumbling mess all because a spider crawled across our hand.
It's only scary cause we aren't out there, amongst it all.
We are so far removed of what we were, what we came from, who we are instinctually.

We aren't looking at these fascinating little critters surviving the daily battles of life.

Instead we come armed with Mortein and Aeroguard, spraying the crap out of every airspace making it so thick with aerial droplets that you could drink the killer cocktail straight from the sky.

I understand they can be scary, but that's cause have more than the usual number of legs.
I understand they sometimes suck your blood, but you'd have no issues if it was Edward Cullen.
I understand sometimes they crawl across your face and in your mouth during the wee hours of the morning, but that's just because THEY LOVE YOU!

Don't be an arachnophobic, be an arachnophillic!

I mean, we have lots in common...
Abdomens.
Eyes.
Stomachs.

See, lots!!

Despite the urgent panic deep within you when you see a cockroach scuttle by, just try and force a smile and resist the overwhelming urge to jump all over the critter.

Not good karma. Not at all.

Instead, inspect this little guy, from afar. Try to work out how this little bugger will survive the apocalypse whilst your toasted corpse disintegrates. At least that's what I eventually tried to do with Mr March Fly.

I looked at his enormous iridescent eyes and saw affection. I looked at his long black hairy legs and saw an athlete.I looked at his shiny shiny wings and saw flight, something I could never achieve.

He looked at me and saw a giant mouth with huge vibrations escaping it, making a string of words.He saw a bouncy mass of brown curls.He saw my awesome outfit I chose to wear today and he was like, 'Dang girl, if only you were a March Fly'

Through these observations of each other came a mutual understanding. An acceptance.
And for 5 hours, we were friends.
He watched me and I watched him (partly to keep tabs on his whereabouts).
Friends.
For now.