stink bugs

So there are stink bugs in my house.  I've noticed them off and on, over the last few years.  Generally if something isn't obviously a pest, or something horrifying like a centipede (THEIR LEGS ARE HAIR AND THEY ARE LEGION), I don't kill it, both because I'm softhearted and because I'm a coward.  These bugs never bit me or Simon, they didn't appear to be eating anything; they're just slow and a weird shape and they kind of sit there, or occasionally brrzzzzz into a lamp shade.  So I've left them alone.  Some half-conscious hunch (I must have read some kind of field guide as a kid) said "maybe they're stink bugs" so I never tried to smash them.

Out of curiosity a couple of months ago I finally looked them up ("bugs shaped like a shield"), and sure enough: stink bugs.  I've never noticed anything stinky about them, but again, I've left them alone.  The sources I located said that they're not pests, they don't eat anything, and they don't reproduce indoors, so I felt vindicated in not viewing them as a harm.

Well, just before I sat down to type this, a stink bug that likes to hang out in my bedroom because of the illumination from the bedside lamp was in my way on the night table, so I dug out a tissue and gently moved it.  I was ever so polite, but it seemed to become quite perturbed, and buzzed harshly around the lamp so that every other sentence I've had to look over my shoulder to see what it was doing.  So here I am, writing about how I've taken pains to get along with the stink bugs in my house, and I hear this brrrrzzzzt and a plop, and I look up to see it floating in my glass of water.

Well, fine then, jerk.  I didn't really like you hanging out by my lamp anyway.

So I took the glass to the bathroom and emptied it into the toilet.  And now my house has one less stink bug.

I just hope I haven't started a war.