For those that don't live in Texas, let me tell you about June bugs.

June bugs are marble sized brown beetles that are arguably the dumbest bugs on the face of the earth. You don't see them during the day usually, you mainly see them at night, breaking their exoskeletons against porch and street lights. They have no navigational skills around these night lights and end up flying in circles and into walls, doors, people, anything not moving around. When they land, they are upside-down wings still buzzing like they've just dropped acid and are hallucinating being chased by a bird in a Dali painting. I mean, I've seen some dumb bugs before, usually beetles, but these have got to be the 'tards of the insect world.

So it got me thinking about why bugs fly into lights at all. It's seems pretty weird that most flying insects do this. When in Colorado, it was the gnats and miller moths that turned the 50 ft radius around any street light into a blizzard of buzzing wings. I checked a few entomology sites and found that no one knows why bugs do this. There are some simple theories however. 1) They use the sun to navigate during the day and instinctually follow it's light in a straight line, helping them know where home and food are. They never get closer to the sun, so it's always in front of them. 2) Moths are attracted to the full moon's light so at night they will fly high and try to reach it, there by spreading their population out over large areas. 3) Insects are more attuned to light waves and the frequency of artificial light over natural light drives them crazy.

Either way, the phenomenon is dependant on two things; the kind of light and the kind of bug. Some bugs are content to sit near the light, some are perpetually flying around it, some try to smash themselves against it. June bugs seem to go into a Bezerker Fury whenever they're near my porch and it becomes an American Gladiator spectacle to watch anyone leave the house. Last night one did a Greg Luganis right into my coke, I can only assume the caffeine calmed it down.