Wherever I go (or I’ve been)
Bugs attack me, ignoring my kin.
I scratch and I itch
And I can’t help but bitch…
Cuz mosquitoes get under my skin!
Update: August 20 is World Mosquito Day.
Posts Tagged ‘Insect and Bug Humor’
Still Bugged By Mosquitoes (Limerick)
Monday, July 11th, 2022Mosquito Misery (Limerick)
Saturday, October 9th, 2021Please forgive me: I can’t help but grouse;
A mosquito is loose in our house.
It doesn’t like Mark,
But bites ME on a lark:
Hellish welts from that blood-sucking louse!
Disappointing Limerick
Tuesday, September 21st, 2021A bee expert’s promised appointment
To be Dean di’n’t pan out — no anointment;
Some serious flaws
In his thesis, the cause…
And so that was the fly in the ointment.
Mark, To The Rescue (Limerick)
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2016While many admire the spider,
To be candid, I can not abide ’er.
When I spied ’er last night,
I eyed ’er with fright
And begged hubby to please outside guide ’er.
(March 14th is National Save A Spider Day.)
Let Them Eat … Insects? (Limerick)
Thursday, October 15th, 2015Are bugs more nutritious than meat?
In a study on what we should eat,
The answer was “yes.”
I am bugged and confess
That I’d sooner eat peat or concrete.
A Limerick To Help You Celebrate “Eat Outside Day” (August 31)
Sunday, August 30th, 2015Brace yourself! Tomorrow, August 31, is Eat Outside Day.
Although eating outside can be fun,
My enjoyment is quickly undone
By insects that join
To dine on one’s loin.
Just one bite, and I’ll bug out and run.
Bugged
Friday, July 18th, 2014Bugged
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Some insect made a sandwich
Of my knuckle, it appears.
My index finger hurts so much,
My eyes are raining tears.
I’m not sure what critter bit me.
Maybe wasp, mosquito, bee,
Or a literary critic–
“No more writing!” his decree.
Crawling With Gift Ideas (Limerick)
Thursday, February 14th, 2013Crawling With Gift Ideas (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
It’s too late for a Valentine’s broach?
Need a holiday gift plan to poach?
Well, here’s something new
From the helpful Bronx Zoo:
Give your sweetie her name on a roach.
From the Bronx Zoo, a strange and limited Valentine’s Day Offer:
Can’t decide on what to get that special someone for Valentine’s Day? Sometimes the answer is all around us, and right where it’s been for millions of years—like cockroaches!
Naming a Madagascar hissing roach in honor of someone near and dear to your heart shows that you’ve noticed how resilient, resourceful, and loyal that person is. You’re not afraid to say, “Baby, you’re a roach!”
WCS’s Bronx Zoo has 58,000 of these brown, iridescent beauties, and most go humbly by “whatchamacallit.” With a $10 donation, you can name one for your sweetie, and send a truly unique certificate of honor.
Camp-Free Limerick
Wednesday, June 6th, 2012Poetic Asides prompts us to write poems about camping. As you can see, I’m not exactly a roughing-it kind of gal:
Camp-Free Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
I’m reluctant to rough it outside.
I need comforts a house can provide.
I’m too timid to camp,
But at home I’m a champ
Where mosquitoes can’t feast on my hide.
Update: August 20 is World Mosquito Day.
Bugged By Ads (Humor Column)
Monday, December 26th, 2011This “torment your pet frog” video, which features an iPad screen depicting tasty-looking insects, reminded me of an old humor column of mine:
Bugged By Ads
By Madeleine Begun Kane
If you saw what looked like an insect on your television screen, what weapon would you reach for? A wad of tissues, perhaps? Okay, let’s make the bug more menacing than your average house invader — let’s make it a cockroach.
I’m guessing you’d grab a sacrificial magazine, roll it up, and take a swing at the screen. A swing strong enough to demolish the roach (you hope), while leaving your TV set more or less intact.
I’m also guessing you’d avoid guaranteed glass shatterers like hammers, drills, and chain saws. And up till this very moment, I would have sworn that a motorcycle helmet would sit atop the no-no list. Apparently, I was wrong.
A Tampa, Florida woman actually threw a motorcycle helmet at a TV screen roach. Overkill? I’d say so. Especially when you consider that:
1. The helmet trashed her screen; and
2. Her TV screen was cockroach-free.
No, I’m not talking about an LSD-crazed youth doing battle with hallucinated insects. I’m talking about a grown and presumably sober person who (along with other TV viewers) was suckered by Orkin Pest Control’s all too realistic ad featuring an animated roach crawling across the screen.
Like many others who were taken in by Orkin’s ad campaign, this Tampa woman was determined to kill the roach. Unfortunately, the only thing she managed to kill was her television set.
End of story? Of course not. This happened in the USA where people, including our helmet-wielding woman, want to be compensated for their injuries.
Now I’m a recovering lawyer and I used to handle my share of civil … and uncivil … litigation. So you might ask me what I’d do if I were consulted by the owner of a TV set destroyed by a motorcycle helmet aimed at a nonexistent roach.
Being a cautious and thorough attorney, I’d carefully evaluate the case by asking questions like:
1. Your one-of-a-kind, irreplaceable helmet was badly dented, right?
2. Have you had full body x-rays to check for internal TV screen glass shards?
3. How’s the helmet flinging-induced carpal tunnel syndrome progressing?
4. Why aren’t you seeking treatment for your extremely painful ducking to avoid glass-induced whiplash?
Orkin doesn’t appear to be worried about litigation. In fact, Orkin’s treating the whole matter with a sense of humor. It even ran an Orkin “Got Me” drawing at its (Orkin.com) Web site, asking viewers to describe (by April 30th) how its “fake out” cockroach crawling across the screen ad campaign “got” them. According to the submission information, “ALL ENTRANTS will be placed in a random drawing for a BRAND NEW TELEVISION.”
I was planning to email an entry myself, but I had a bit of a mishap: The roach that adorns Orkin’s submit button looked so real, I threw my shoe at it and broke my computer screen.
Macaronic Limerick
Monday, April 25th, 2011First off, this limerick (despite its name) has nothing to do with macaroni. I’m not suffering from Passover pasta-withdrawal. Nor do my dreams (or nightmares) ever feature anything of a noodle nature.
So why the title? I just learned, from the delightfully informative Miss Rumphius, about the rare and usually comic form called macaronic verse. What the heck is macaronic verse? We’re told that it’s a usually absurd and nonsensical “poem in a mixture of two languages, one of them preferably Latin,” and that “the poet usually subjects one language to the grammatical laws of another to make people laugh.”
So naturally I had to try it, mixing legal terms (mostly Latin) in with standard limerick English:
Macaronic Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
The corpus is AWOL. Oh my!
I attest that I left it hereby.
What a bona fide mess.
My mentis has stress.
It’s de facto I mortemed that fly.
(Linked at We Write Poems pairings prompt.)
Itching For Another Acrostic Limerick
Friday, April 8th, 2011After my first fun foray into acrostic limericks, I just had to try another:
Itching For Another Acrostic Limerick
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Bemoaning her red, itchy bites,
Undone by her sleep-deprived nights,
Gabrielle said, “No more!
Going out to the store.
You mosquitoes have earned your last rites.”
(More bug related poems here.)
Update: A case of insect revenge? Right after posting this, I noticed that my left foot was itchy and discovered my first mosquito bite of the season.
Update: August 20 is World Mosquito Day.
Bugged By Mosquitoes
Thursday, May 31st, 2007Bugged By Mosquitoes (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane
Mosquitoes are driving me mad.
Seems a zillion are biting me—bad!
Sprays and lotions don’t work;
They keep chomping and lurk,
While ignoring my husband—the cad!
Update: August 20 is World Mosquito Day.
