In my time in Xian, I grew rather attached to these quizzical creatures. They quickly revealed themselves to be the dominant life form in our dorms, clambering over everything they could see seemingly for the hell of it.
Why did I climb this umbrella? Because it is THERE.
The girls were terrified of stink bugs. I returned the favor by threading them into their hair whenever I got the chance. The stink bugs and I would play a little game together, seeing how long the intrepid voyagers could hold on as I held back laughter.
Our record was nearly an hour. I placed my stinkbug on Eva, leaving the dorm. It stayed on her for the taxi ride and showed signs of wanderlust. I quickly transferred him to Janice, where he sat enraptured for the remainder of the evening in the crowded dance club. When he left his perch, perhaps to go bumping with the local cockroach coterie, I felt a real sense of loss - and a burgeoning respect for the species.
Stink bugs are apex scavengers because they cannot be killed. Well, you can kill them, but the action is extremely inadvisable. The species is exquisitely adapted to life among humans because their death brings something worse than pain - it yields aesthetic inconvenience. Some quirk of the stinkbug’s intestinal alchemy results in a disproportionately potent effluence emanating from their bowels. The resultant combination is a fugue of stench - like a reeses peanut butter cup if instead of chocolate and peanut butter it were bile and diharrea.
I did not know this at first, because I loved the little creatures and never turned thought to harm them. I loved to watch them crawl - each little motion of the legs curled a smile as my eyes widened. Middle legs up, then front, then back. Afternating each side - six separate motions at once. LIke a jazz drummer, or an exquisite organist sitting down to Bach. Their every movement proficiency and improvisation. These bugs cost me minutes on end as I watched their thoraxes edge across the shower spout, preparing for a kamikaze bungee into my dripping coifs.
I have yet to see one eat.
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