A beetle the color of a newly-minted penny and the size of a Swiss army knife is currently sharing my office. At least I think it's a beetle; I didn't spend a lot of time getting to know it before I ran to the kitchen to grab a highball glass to imprison it on my carpet. I wasn't going to out and out kill it mainly because I generally don't kill bugs. I'm not comfortable with the idea of killing anything. (This makes taking care of a garden a real dilemma; I certainly can't replant every weed...) I capture spiders and let them go outside. Or even let them continue to wander inside if they're small. I spread diatomaceous earth around my house foundation on the outside, bay leaves in my kitchen cupboards on the inside, and then maybe one or two ant traps as a line of last defense when I see ants in the house. I don't kill them, but the ant traps might. I don't feel too bad about this; the ants have had two major warnings by the time they get to the ant traps, so I feel the decision is in their own hands, or actually feet, at this point. My dog and I both had Lyme disease last summer, and that was no picnic, yet I still feel particularly cruel the way I now have to go after any and all ticks, and flush them down the toilet, or at least whatever parts of them I've managed to extract from my dog's body with tweezers. I do kill mosquitoes some of the time, but only because of West Nile, and I'm not proud of this.

I adore nature, and generally don't spaz out from its creatures, including rodents, snakes, and bugs. So why did this insect, albeit an Imperial Walker-sized version, send me running for a murder weapon? For killing it I am, in true passive aggressive fashion, by starving it to death if nothing else.

This behemoth sent me running because it didn't make noise, it was unknown, and it was big. Ants and spiders don't make noise, but I recognize them. Cicadas are creepy along the very same lines as my current office partner, but they make noise, and again, I know what they are. It's the idea of something both large and unknown stealing silently upon me that I think freaked me out...in all the meanings one might take from that statement. The unknown can be scary. And thinking you'll hear if something potentially dangerous enters a room in your home, and discovering you won't, is unnerving to say the least. (And any bug that could potentially scuttle quickly anywhere is not a bug for me.)  This creature is no tarantula, and I entered the room second and cornered it, not vice versa, but it's enough to give me a taste of James Bond's experience in Dr. No. No thanks is what I say.

Running for my weapon of choice, the highball glass, may have been completely unnecessary. The thing hasn't moved. It may have already been dead when I came upon it.  But I wasn't taking any chances. I think it may actually be a creature of unusual beauty. If I saw it in a museum case, identified and explained, I'd probably spend several moments looking at it. But here in my office, unannounced and unidentified, not to mention leggy, I'll give it a good two or three weeks in its distorted highball prison, and then probably ask my son if he'll get it the <blink> out of here.