The Welcome Home Committee

Big ones, small ones, gross ones, cute ones, furry ones, buzzing ones, flying ones, crawling ones, slimy ones…

Insects.

As much as we would like to claim otherwise, they are in our homes, on high shelves and in the corners of the garage.

Arachnophobics beware, California homes generally have at least one spider per person. I have daddy longlegs everywhere, one in the shower, one in a corner in the hallway, several in the living room, and the laundry room has arachno-condos.

I shoo them out, take down their webs and clean up the tiny bloodless insect carcasses discarded. Yet, they rebuild. (Clearly they have a better Federal Emergency Management Agency than Katrina victims.)

Daddy longlegs are part of life here. No one really notices or pays attention.

But I noticed, because it was a contrast.

Ships are a very closed environment with a lot of food, a lot of food. Great efforts are made to prevent stowaways of every type, including the small crawly type.

My ship is extraordinarily successful at this. With the exception of the occasional fly, I never once in my five months aboard saw an insect on board.

That is not entirely true. On the top deck while in St. Petersburg once, we had a terrible infestation of lady bugs. You literally could not take a couple steps without crunching a lady big. But the lady bugs were well restricted to the exterior top deck. As soon as we left St. Petersburg, we left behind the lady bugs.

My point is, among the strange aspects of ship life, is the complete absence of some normal aspects of life, including insects.

This has been strikingly apparent in my return home, not to an empty house, but one with a spider here and there.

They seemed rather indifferent to my return.