#oneaday Day 542: Irritating Creatures

Everyone has some kind of flying, buzzing, biting, stinging thing that they find particularly annoying. In fact, most flying, buzzing, biting, stinging things are particularly annoying. Spiders skitter around and hide, jumping out when you’re in the middle of something and causing you to spill staining drinks all over the place. Wasps buzz around your face repeatedly, muttering “shall I sting you, shall I sting you, shall I sting you?” and then fuck off out of the window. And mosquitoes are completely invisible but you can always hear them.

There are two creatures, though, that are so immensely pointless that their already annoying natures are amplified a billion bajillionfold. They have elements in common, but they’re also quite different. They fly, they don’t bite or sting and they don’t really make much of a noise. But they’re infuriating.

I am, of course, talking about the daddy long-legs and the moth. Both follow the immensely annoying pattern of “Ooh! Light! I must fly towards this! Ouch, shit, it’s hot! Ooh, light! Ouch! I’m on fire a bit. Maybe I should fly around and bump into things some more. Hey, a TV! That’s a light. Maybe I’ll sit on it. No, I think I’ll fly around and bump into things a bit more.”

I mean come on. Seriously. It doesn’t help that having a daddy long-legs or a moth fly into your ear when all the lights are off and you’re not expecting it is one of the most terrifying things in the world — good luck sleeping after that happens — but really, what is the point of these creatures? Daddy long-legses (well, you tell me a better plural) supposedly possess an incredibly lethal venom but have absolutely no means of administering said venom, making them absolutely completely and utterly pointless. (My evidence for this factoid is, I admit, a Ricky Gervais stand-up show, so I do take this supposed knowledge with something of a pinch of salt. But still.) Unless their big purpose in life is just to repeatedly headbutt television sets and fly into people’s ears. If that’s not an argument strongly against the concept of intelligent design, I don’t know what is.

Now, I’m sure there’s a reason for them existing in the whole food chain and whatnot. But if that’s the case, can’t they please just for one night not fly in through my window and be irritating? That’d be just lovely. I’m pretty sure that the whole food web that Nature has worked out involving these creatures doesn’t involve a Hoover as the primary predator.

Or perhaps it does. That’d be weird.