Nature Is Just So Cute...Or Is It?

By Vicky DeCoster

Lately I’ve really been trying to get back to nature. The other evening, I decided I needed a little peace and quiet, so I turned off the television and went outside to my deck where I plopped in a comfortable chair with a book. Just as I finished the first paragraph, a nest full of baby birds in an adjacent tree began squawking loudly. I smiled as I thought to myself, “Isn’t that just so cute?”

As the baby birds continued to screech for their mother who had apparently run off with the pet parakeet down the street who promised her she would never have to regurgitate into anyone’s mouth again, the dogs next door started barking wildly at absolutely nothing but the wind. I smiled again, but this time the grin wasn’t as genuine. Maybe nature wasn’t as cute as I originally thought.

I tried to concentrate on my book even though two squirrels in another tree had just initiated a loud argument over an acorn. I sighed and began my deep breathing exercises in a poor attempt to relax and block out nature’s noise. Unfortunately, all that breathing caused my nose to fill with pollen and I began sneezing uncontrollably just as a cricket positioned himself under my chair and began rubbing his hind legs together - beginning a marathon chirping session that surely wouldn’t end until dawn. I peered under my chair at the cricket and announced, “Look Jiminy Cricket, my hind legs rub together every time I walk across the room, so what you’re doing down there is nothing spectacular, believe me.”

I closed both my book and my eyes and tried to visit my happy place - an imaginary location that now resembled more of a padded room instead of a babbling brook, peaceful mountaintop, or beautiful waterfall. Suddenly, a locust in a tree above my head began rubbing his rear feet together, bursting into a loud song surely meant to wake up all the other locusts around the world in an effort to prepare them for
another catastrophic invasion where they would not only eat all my flowers and plants, but also my children and anything else that got in their way.

Immediately after dusk made an appearance, a mosquito the size of a helicopter landed on my arm and proceeded to draw more blood than my doctor had at my last annual exam. A few seconds later, something crawled down my pants that resembled a tick and promptly disappeared. As I opened my mouth to scream, a fly mistook my tongue for a runway.

“THAT IS IT!” I yelled while flailing my arms around my head all while holding my mouth open while the fly tried to maneuver around on my slippery tongue and find his way out. I grabbed my book and ran into the house, throwing my clothes off immediately. As I sprinted - naked as a jaybird - through the living room, my husband’s mouth hung open as I gasped breathlessly, “Got a THING down my pants and I don’t want to put its face on a milk carton. Help me find it!”

“Did you just spit out a fly?” he asked while looking horrified at the carpet.

“Oh thank goodness,” I answered, obviously relieved. “That’s one less thing I need to worry about.”

Just then, my husband pointed at my stomach, horrified once again. “Is that a tick in your belly button?”

As I opened my mouth to scream, the fly flew right back in.

No matter what anyone tells you, Mother Nature is not nice.

Award-winning humor writer Vicky DeCoster is the author of Husbands, Hot Flashes, and All That Hullabaloo! and The Wacky World of Womanhood. Vicky’s been published in over 60 magazines, books, and on several web sites. She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two children where she is working on her third book of humorous essays. Visit her at http://www.wackywomanhood.com/