If you live out in the country, you become friends with the local “varmits.” On my daily walk around the farm, I pass three turkey hens, occasionally I startle a deer, and at night husband Dan and I are witness to a parade of hesitant, elegant opossums and rowdy boy raccoons.

In the belief that all life is important, most uninvited beings found in our home are escorted back outside and when this fall brought a stink bug invasion to our porch, I vacuumed them up and released them back to the wild.

Vacuuming and releasing turned out to be a five-minute solution as the bugs simply flew back around the house and re-entered the porch. The bugs also left a trail of brown specks behind them, specks I cleaned up as I kept trying kindness. It was hard, but I was persevering until the morning we were drinking our morning coffee and Dan almost swallowed a bug in his cup.

Invasion was at our doorstep and Dan sprayed sticky, messy bug spray on all nine floor-to-ceiling porch windows. The stink bugs laughed. Now we had hordes of stink bugs and nine windows to clean. It was at that point that I lost my Zen.

Incensed, I got out the big boy vacuum cleaner, the one from which there is no return because the huge bag that contains the dirt lives somewhere in the basement in a place I can’t reach. I began vacuuming and vacuuming, and the bug war seemed to be going our way. Relieved, we packed up our camper and headed to the beach for a much-needed nine-day retreat.

We got home yesterday, and I went out on the porch to check on the war’s progress. Mostly, the stink bugs were gone, but there seemed to be small red and black spots everywhere. On closer inspection, I found that ladybugs had heard about the lovely accommodations found at the Arp house and while we were gone had made themselves at home.

I’m trying to remain philosophical about it all; history shows us that one war ends and another begins, and I am now a war veteran. I have my vacuum cleaner at the ready, and I’ve sent out a message to all bugs everywhere. Beware all ye who enter here, that little woman you see on the porch, the one singing Freddy Mercury’s song We are the Champions? She is to be avoided at all costs. You have been warned.

We are the champions, my friends
And we’ll keep on fighting till the end
We are the champions
We are the champions
No time for losers
‘Cause we are the champions of the World      – Freddy Mercury

Cindy Arp, teacher/librarian, retired from Knox County Schools. She and husband Dan live in Heiskell.