News
ENLARGE
“Wake-up, they’re having sex outside the window.”
I don’t care what time it is, when your mate issues that declaration, you get up.
After grabbing my binoculars, I stumbled towards the drapes.
Ellen had her nose against the glass and was providing a running commentary.
“That’s a move I’ve never seen. He really should slow down. Ouch, that had to hurt.”
I cautioned her to keep her voice down.
I finally joined her at the window and couldn’t see a thing.
“Where are they?” I asked. “Did they hear you?”
“Are you blind? They’re three inches from your nose, stuck to the glass.”
My wife woke me up at 5:17 a.m. to watch two butterflies mate.
The lovers were perched on the ledge of our bedroom window, 20 feet off the ground, occasionally taking flight and landing in a tangle.
Not being acquainted with bug-sex I can’t be sure if they were fighting or mating but what I can say is that it looked like fun. Even from only inches away, I couldn’t who was the male or female. But I assumed the male was the bug waiting for the other bug to decide if she was in the mood.
We spied on the amorous couple for several minutes and, I’m not ashamed to say, I began to get into it.
“I wouldn’t mind doing some of that myself,” I said.
“Are you crazy?” she answered, “You’d probably crush them both.”
Of all the species sharing this planet, humans are the only ones who are embarrassed by sex and bodily functions. I suppose this could be due to heightened sensibilities or because, of all the animal kingdom, we look the most ridiculous doing either.
The human beast is certainly on the low end when it comes to physical and aesthetic attributes. Animals are faster, stronger, more elegant, and they don’t need toilet paper. The only thing the human mammal has over the other creatures on this planet is that we’ve invented stuff that allows us to kill them.
The town I live is currently having a bear problem. Due to climate and man made conditions, more bears are being seen in populated areas. So far the only hardships I’ve heard of is one getting hit by a car and trash being raided. I would imagine it is only a matter of time before the inevitable tragedy occurs. When that happens, the bears will most certainly win the first round but then will lose the match. Resort communities would prefer the wildlife behave like the low-level laborers — available, but non-obtrusive.
Unfortunately, unlike the janitors and chambermaids who have the good sense to remain out of sight, animals sometimes forget their place and encroach on human turf.
It’s no problem if it is only a pair of horny bugs on your windowsill, but if a 300 pound hairy beast that’s not employed by the NFL shows up in a neighborhood of upscale dwellings there is hell to pay. Perhaps if the bears simply made love like butterflies instead of raiding the trash they would be considered a welcomed tourist attraction. But as luck would have it, bears, like NASCAR fans, are usually more hungry than horny and have fallen out of favor with their human neighbors.
It would be easy — and naïve — to say the bears were here first and we have no right to resent them coming back to visit. By that logic, we would have to allow the Native Americans to open a casino on Wall Street.
White America has a long standing history of taking what we want to the detriment of anyone or thing who was here first. We like our wildlife in zoos and our visiting workers in employee housing.
I believe we send mixed messages. We don’t want large mammals upsetting our refuse and threatening our pets, yet we set out a weekly buffet for them every trash day. We all need to be more diligent about when, what and how long we leave out our waste.
In the town I live you can be cited if you put out your rubbish before 6 in the morning on the day of collection and your receptacle must not be any easier to open than an Oxycontin container with a childproof cap. Yes, it is inconvenient, but it is a small price to pay to keep the bears healthy and bugs horny.
Jeffrey Bergeron, under the alias of Biff America, can be seen on RSN TV and read in several newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at biffbreck@yahoo.com.
Biff’s book “Steep, Deep and Dyslexic” is available from local book stores or at Backcountrymagazine.com.
I don’t care what time it is, when your mate issues that declaration, you get up.
After grabbing my binoculars, I stumbled towards the drapes.
Ellen had her nose against the glass and was providing a running commentary.
“That’s a move I’ve never seen. He really should slow down. Ouch, that had to hurt.”
I cautioned her to keep her voice down.
I finally joined her at the window and couldn’t see a thing.
“Where are they?” I asked. “Did they hear you?”
“Are you blind? They’re three inches from your nose, stuck to the glass.”
My wife woke me up at 5:17 a.m. to watch two butterflies mate.
The lovers were perched on the ledge of our bedroom window, 20 feet off the ground, occasionally taking flight and landing in a tangle.
Not being acquainted with bug-sex I can’t be sure if they were fighting or mating but what I can say is that it looked like fun. Even from only inches away, I couldn’t who was the male or female. But I assumed the male was the bug waiting for the other bug to decide if she was in the mood.
We spied on the amorous couple for several minutes and, I’m not ashamed to say, I began to get into it.
“I wouldn’t mind doing some of that myself,” I said.
“Are you crazy?” she answered, “You’d probably crush them both.”
Of all the species sharing this planet, humans are the only ones who are embarrassed by sex and bodily functions. I suppose this could be due to heightened sensibilities or because, of all the animal kingdom, we look the most ridiculous doing either.
The human beast is certainly on the low end when it comes to physical and aesthetic attributes. Animals are faster, stronger, more elegant, and they don’t need toilet paper. The only thing the human mammal has over the other creatures on this planet is that we’ve invented stuff that allows us to kill them.
The town I live is currently having a bear problem. Due to climate and man made conditions, more bears are being seen in populated areas. So far the only hardships I’ve heard of is one getting hit by a car and trash being raided. I would imagine it is only a matter of time before the inevitable tragedy occurs. When that happens, the bears will most certainly win the first round but then will lose the match. Resort communities would prefer the wildlife behave like the low-level laborers — available, but non-obtrusive.
Unfortunately, unlike the janitors and chambermaids who have the good sense to remain out of sight, animals sometimes forget their place and encroach on human turf.
It’s no problem if it is only a pair of horny bugs on your windowsill, but if a 300 pound hairy beast that’s not employed by the NFL shows up in a neighborhood of upscale dwellings there is hell to pay. Perhaps if the bears simply made love like butterflies instead of raiding the trash they would be considered a welcomed tourist attraction. But as luck would have it, bears, like NASCAR fans, are usually more hungry than horny and have fallen out of favor with their human neighbors.
It would be easy — and naïve — to say the bears were here first and we have no right to resent them coming back to visit. By that logic, we would have to allow the Native Americans to open a casino on Wall Street.
White America has a long standing history of taking what we want to the detriment of anyone or thing who was here first. We like our wildlife in zoos and our visiting workers in employee housing.
I believe we send mixed messages. We don’t want large mammals upsetting our refuse and threatening our pets, yet we set out a weekly buffet for them every trash day. We all need to be more diligent about when, what and how long we leave out our waste.
In the town I live you can be cited if you put out your rubbish before 6 in the morning on the day of collection and your receptacle must not be any easier to open than an Oxycontin container with a childproof cap. Yes, it is inconvenient, but it is a small price to pay to keep the bears healthy and bugs horny.
Jeffrey Bergeron, under the alias of Biff America, can be seen on RSN TV and read in several newspapers and magazines. He can be reached at biffbreck@yahoo.com.
Biff’s book “Steep, Deep and Dyslexic” is available from local book stores or at Backcountrymagazine.com.
