By: Dr. Michael Robinson | Communications Studies Professor
Over the past couple of decades,, we’ve had a number of unwanted visitors on the top floor of Schewel. There must be some kind of secret ecology, a Darwinian struggle for survival taking place in our offices.
The biggest life forms have been birds. They get in through the first floor doors and eventually make their panicked way up into the exposed ceiling of our main office. It’s been a few years since this happened. Usually they were easy to catch and remove.
When we first moved into Schewel Hall, it was flies. There were just these big, fat flies, the kind I call “dirigible flies.” Loud and annoying, they drove us crazy. One day I lucked out and hit one with a rubber band. Our administrative assistant saw me do it and from that day forward she thought I was some kind of Hawkeye. I’d get called in to dispatch the marauders. Luckily they stopped showing up so much before people realized I wasn’t such an eagle eye after all.
We get ladybugs from time to time. I try to get them out as best I can. I irrationally believe they are good luck so I take good care of them. And over a decade ago when the entire Lynchburg area got invaded by stinkbugs, we got those too. I still see them from time to time.
These days, it’s all bothersome hornets. Please note that it is hornet with a lower-case “h”. Students, aka Hornets with a capital “H”, are always welcome. The small-h hornets ping about the spaces between the blinds and the windows, sounding like the worst plinko machine you could play. When they find their way out between the slats, they circle about in high widening arcs until they can find another blind to get stuck behind to begin the pinging again. Eventually they become a problem that must be dealt with.
I used to have some help– a surprisingly large spider who would dash out from time to time and take down some flies or other pests. I never did figure out where it lived. I was glad not to know. We peacefully co-existed for a long while, until one day there was a tragic hunting accident. The spider lunged out from cover at a bug I was swatting. That was it. I’d lost my eight-legged predator.
I wonder if that’s why things seem to have gotten worse in the past year. Yesterday, for example, one hornet dove at my water bottle just as I was reaching for a drink. I’m lucky I did not get a very stingy surprise. Now I’m on high alert, swinging my swatter around like some mad supervillain trying to down Ant-Man and the Wasp. Superhero fans sometimes mock Ant-Man and the Wasp’s foes. I have renewed appreciation for those baddies now. It’s not easy to swat an agile target flying around the ceiling. And if you think you’re good at it, stop by and show me how.
