A few mornings ago, I walked out of the bedroom and was horrified to see twenty-four stinkbugs on my front living room wall. Yes, I counted them. But seeing my glass half-full, I was thankful that they weren't some other insect. I realize stinkbugs have done tremendous damage to farmers' crops, and the farmers have my sincerest sympathy, but as far as I can tell, stinkbugs have not done any damage inside my house. I speak from experience, since these intruders were here last year--that is, their predecessors were here. Therefore, personally speaking, I was glad the twenty-four bugs were not cockroaches on my wall. One cockroach would have been too many. But looking at the stinkbugs dispersed all over my wall, I was reminded of the cockroaches I had seen in someone's home over three decades ago, when I worked in the field of social services, and I recalled that was where I had perfected my professional or poker face. You see, we were trained not to show our personal emotions, no matter how appalling we found a client's living conditions, and I distinctly recall that particular occasion when I walked into a house infested with cockroaches, all over the floor, walls, and ceiling, and I performed my job without showing any emotion concerning the fear I had of a cockroach falling from the ceiling and landing on me. Thinking about it now, I do not think I could have maintained my professional composure if a cockroach had landed on my head. But I laugh now to think that experience honed my poker face.In this photo, Quentin is observing a stinkbug in the bathroom. By the way, Quentin does not have a poker face. As for the twenty-four stinkbugs I counted on my living room wall, most of them are either dead or they have scattered throughout the house. Perhaps the stinkbugs know that the cats enjoy catching them in flight, because it appears that they can sit perfectly still for days.
