LOVE IS SQUASHING BUGS

A commercial for a TV show this week is a man telling a woman “I wanna squash bugs for you.”
I think that's a nice declaration of love.
No one’s been squashing bugs for me lately.
I maturely squash my own bugs.
Squashing my own bugs is not something that comes naturally to me.
I was the youngest child with a brother, father and mother who previously squashed bugs for me. Bathtubs, basements, closet, it didn't matter where I found them; I was saved. It was a great life.
Didn’t move from my parent’s house till I got married at twenty; then my husband squashed a few for me. But that’s when I started to learn to squash my own.
Waiting for someone to rescue me from an insect, when I regularly dealt with mice and spiders in my horse stable, seemed silly. However, it was nice to have my husband as a back-up for particularly freaky encounters.
Now, single, with my own place, it comes with the territory. I am chief bug-squasher.
Initially, big spiders were the hardest to approach. Big spiders still give me the heebie-jeebies.
But then I moved to Texas and encountered extra-large roach/waterbug monsters.
Huge, dark, winged roach-like insects that die for days on their backs, and turn into a yellow, yolk-like mess if you squash them, they freaked me out the first time one flew off the ceiling onto the wall.
I had a few false starts slapping them with a slipper, before I realized they’re like armored tanks and need a hard shoe to be smashed or a straight shot of DDT.
It took me three months to finally kill one.
Ever since I adopted a cantankerous cat, I haven’t had to kill too many big bugs. I’ll find parts of bugs I would’ve had to squash, but the cat turned them into pieces.
Other than that, I squash my own bugs.
I’ll do it for the one I love, too.