Friday, August 8, 2008
Constructive Critter-cism
Posted by Michael Giordano on Fri, Aug 8, 2008 at 9:17 PM
What’s the one thing New Orleans doesn’t have enough of this summer? Levee protection? Road Home money? Political leadership? Guess again. According to the Audubon Institute, it’s BUGS. Their Entergy IMAX theater is currently screening Bugs! in 3D. In June, they opened the new Insectarium. Their advertising slogan? Infested with fun. Clever, huh? That might even make me grin in January or February when the weather is cool and the insect population is mostly dormant or deceased.
But this is August. This is New Orleans. Someone needs to tell the 80 bazillion dragonflies in my neighborhood that the Everglades is a bit to the east. The fire ant mounds along the levees look like small army encampments with troops massing for an all-out ground assault. CC Sabathia could pitch off some of the larger ones. In my office, there’s talk about battalions of exotic, futuristic grasshoppers armored in black leather, complete with red detailing, marching across highways in formation and shiny beetles shaped like bronze shields infiltrating people’s homes. After battling one of those metallic trespassers in my bathroom one night, I had a bug-filled nightmare that would have made Hitchcock proud. And the wasps? The country club in Greenwich Connecticut has nothing on us, not even on gin & tonic Tuesdays. Put it this way: if you're watching Password and a contestant says "fun" when the clue is "infestation", you can bet they're not from New Orleans.
So no offense to the Audubon Institute and their crack marketing staff, but I won’t be stopping by to see, touch or taste any of their flying, crawling, hopping or slithering offerings just yet.
Comments (1)
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I have just come back from Miami, and you will never mistake any part of New Orleans for the Everglades in August. The nasty biting black-and-yellow flies that dive bomb and bite, taking no notice of the visible coating of Deet, are the worst. I ventured perhaps 10 feet down a closed trail called Snake Bight trying to snap a picture of the interior of a mangrove swamp. I have never seen so many mosquitoes in my entire life, a visible swarm I expected to shape up into an exclamation point and then a hammer and attack me as if I was in cartoonland. The gate just down the trail closing it for the season was completely unnecessary, as no one in less than a full bee keeper's rig would dare venture down the Snake Bight trail.
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