With alarming frequency, big, terrifying kafka-esque bugs get into my classroom. However, this is neither metamorphosis nor metaphor. We’re talking about the real-deal, multi-legged, blood-sucking, ear-buzzing, skitter-across-the-wall kind of bugs. In case you cannot tell, I don’t like bugs…  at least not inside. If they’re outside (where they belong) that’s fine, but when they start coming in our classrooms and sucking our blood while we’re just trying to do our job, something has got to be done.

So, recently, in a fit of frustration/weirdness/reluctance-to-clean-up-an-icky-smushed-mosquito,

I decided that I would publicize my zero-tolerance-for-bugs policy to the insect population at large…

(Sticky notes are poster-sized when you’re an insect.)

While my students have found this equal parts hysterical and disturbing, and while you can say what you will about my sanity levels . . . there have been remarkably fewer bugs in my classroom lately.