Sean University: Don't be buggin' bout these bugs!

When I first announced we were going to do summer electives here at The Sean Adams University of Business Management Development Leadership, power commenter abitterwoman suggested a course on how to kill flies. But violence isn’t what I’d like to promote here. So, instead we’re going to use this space to talk about why you should be thankful for bugs. 

Have you ever gotten home from the store, found a bucket full of gravel on your porch, and thought, “Great, what am I going to use this for?” only to answer to your own question moments later when you used it as an effective doorstop while unloading the groceries?

The answer is no, because a bucket of gravel on your porch is probably a sign that your house has been “marked” by some shadowy, super-powerful organization, so you wouldn't be worrying about unloading the groceries; you’d be calling the cops… if you thought still you could trust them.

But the moral is still the same: sometimes annoying stuff on your porch can turn out to be useful. And nothing’s more annoying and on your porch than bugs! Can they hold the door open? No, but they can do other stuff. And what's more: each one has a unique function. For example:

Spiders: You can teach someone basic counting by letting them count the legs on a spider. And you can teach someone advanced counting by letting them count the threads in a spider’s web. And you can teach someone abstract counting by letting them count the fear they feel just knowing there’s a spider around.

Flies: If raspberries went extinct, people would slowly forget what they looked and tasted like, and in a century, everyone would believe that real raspberries were blue and traditionally served in syrup-form over crushed ice, which would be sad. This is how it is with flies and buzzing. With more and more devices that buzz, we need flies to teach our children where buzzing started.

Praying Mantes: Life is filled with so many unanswered questions, so it’s nice when you can finally get some closure on stuff, like: “hey, I wonder how having fleshy hook things for hands would affect my love life?” Thanks to the praying mantis, we know the answer is badly.

Ants: An ant can serve as a great weight measurement tool. Think about it: since each one can lift ten times its own weight, if you see one carrying something, you know that thing weighs between 0 and 10 ants (since nothing can weigh negative ants). Sure, it’s not super specific, but it narrows it down from any number of ants to a well-defined range.

 

Those are the bugs we’ve studied extensively here at Sean University. Now it’s your turn. What bugs do you find the most useful?