I didn't used to, but now I do. They are these little bugs that sort of look like beatles, but not as big or ugly. They have a little stripe of red on their backs and they can fly.
A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving break, we all started noticing that we were being infested by these bugs. We were very upset and didn't understand where they were coming from. Then one day, when it started to get really bad, Monica told us they were called Box Elder bugs and they were a seasonal bug that came from a certain tree that is behind our house. Her grandparents have them every year around this time.
Well, we were still a little creeped out of them because they were EVERYWHERE. In the kitchen, living room, utility room, the bathroom, in the bookshelves, in MY BED. Anywhere you looked, there were the Box Elder bugs.
We started coming up with different ways to kill them..at least the ones that didn't get fried in the lamp. We would smash them, drown them, light them on fire, try to make Jorge eat them... whatever we could think of. That's how much we hated them.
Then one day everything changed. We started calling them Boxeys for some reason. I don't know why, but we just gave them this name. And then all of a sudden, we didn't hate the Boxeys anymore. We became used to them and actually like them almost. I guess it may have been because we knew they weren't permanent and they would soon go away.
So during our Thanksgiving potluck, we would look up at the cabinets in the kitchen and see about 16 Boxeys walking around. I would start to point them out and Yasmeen would yell at me and tell me not to show people our Boxeys. When I found them in my bed, I would just laugh and nicely push them out. When we saw them on the floor, we would just step over them.
When we all came back after Thanksgiving break, we noticed that the Boxeys were almost gone. They are still around a little bit and we are happy when we see one, but they are gone for the most part this year. I'm sure we will be excited when they come back next year. I know this probably grosses some people out and may sound strange, but this is all true.
And the moral of the story is: if you change your perception of something, it may not be all that bad. One flew into my face yesterday and I didn't even care.