Love bugs me

Here is something the Florida Department of Tourism or the Relocate to Florida Department does not tell you. Florida has all kinds of interesting bugs and crawling things that the non-Floridians who visit or relocate here never suspected. So last week when I noticed a new bug crawling on our window I had to look more closely. In fact, there were several of these new insects crawling and flying around. Up close it looked like two elongated flies attached together. Two distinct insects hooking up - looked like a mating dance to me. I showed my wife. What do you think, I asked. She said it looked like a helicopter bug. Not that she had any scientific background to stake her claim on. I said, no, look closely, see how it is two bugs hooking up. They are mating, I think. Right here in public, on our window. Oh, ugh, she said, unromantically. I do see! Our neighbor is the resident pest control guy so I asked him what was up with these new bugs that looked like they were in some kind of mating dance. Sure are, he said, that's why they are called love bugs! No kidding, I never knew there was such a thing. Florida keeps coming up with new ways to make me ponder the question, why is place so popular?  There is the heat, the monsoonal rains, the frogs, and now love bugs. There are swarms of them. They don't bite and they are amazingly slow moving - like they are intoxicated with love. How can you fly fast when you are hooked together with your mate. So they have a hard time avoiding traffic! Everyone's car is covered with these things. And you need to wash them off fast which isn't easy because the heat quickly bakes them on. They leave a gooey residue behind that is hard to get off. What you have on your car windshield and front end is an exploded egg sac with over 350 eggs! Nice, huh. These bugs celebrating their love in public and getting run over by cars only last about a month but they come in May and September. Two months of love! So this is a heads up: if you're planning to visit Florida you might want to skip the love months. I doubt the tourism brochures will mention that!