Keeping My Insects Safe, For Now

THE DOORBELL rang, and as usual it startled me, because its loud and because it doesn't ring very often. I answered it, after prying apart the mini blind slats to take a quick preview peek, which revealed nothing. I opened the door, and there stood a pleasant looking young man, about twenty. We stared at each other, like two animals, scoping each other out. On his youthful face was a faint trace of a smile, which I assumed was a reflection of my own. I was mildly annoyed, as I always am when a stranger rings the door bell, interrupting something. I expected him to speak first; he knew I was there, and had opened the door. I don't like formalities or amenities, such as "hello", especially when I am mildly annoyed. Still the silence. Finally, I said, "please say something". His smile broadened almost imperceptibly, and he said seomthing about being with a company, and then it dawned on me; he was an insect exterminator,wanting to sell me insect elimination, inside and out, home and yard. Several times previously they had come calling, always a young man riding one of those motorized side to side skateboards, which look like fun. I told him that I was aware of the service that he was offering, had been offered it before, and that, as always, thanks, but no thanks. I explained why. I had to explain why. I don't like the chemicals, the poison, which, if lethal to insects, is harmful to humans, cats, and other animals. Also, I have nothing against the bugs, inside my house, or particuarly in my yard, where they belong. Never content to leave well enough alone, on I pressed. Did you know that insects, I said to the young man now taken aback, world wide, are becoming extinct? That in Europe, insect population of all species have diminished by seventy five percent, and that it has declined by a similar amount in North America? Insects, like frogs, butterflies, bees, and numerous other species, are heading towards extinction. They, especially pollinators, are vital to our own existence. He said he had no idea, that he didn't do much social media, was just working a summer job while in college, had a new wife, and wanted to start a family. That triggered me. I sequed smoothly into climate change. With that, I can go on forever. Everything I told him, horrifying that it was and is, was and is true. He acted like he was hearing a synopsis of a science fiction thriller, which pertained to him not at all. I unloaded all my strange, terrifying but true ammunition. I remember wehn October was a cold weather month. Now it is a summer month, eighty five degress every day. Halloween used to be freesing, now it is hot. Within my lifetime, at my age, 69, there will come a summer when the temperature hits one hundred on June first, and is still one hundred on Labor Day. I talked about him and his forthcoming children. By the time he is my age, in another fifty years, the planet will be unbearable, unless drastic action is taken, now, and it is not being taken now. His own children, yet unborn, will never have a chance. One trillion tons of carbon in the atmosphere which wasn't there a hundred years ago. I pointed to all teh treees cluttering my yard, my small forest of a yard, and proudly proclaimed that I had planted them all, when I built the house, my meager gift against climate change. We agreed that when I die, the next owner will likely cut them all down, and make a normal suburban lawn. By now he was on board, into it. He got on his powered skateboard and prepared to leave. We had shared a connection, had become friends. We discussed college basketball and football briefly, with smiles and happy laughter. He left more warmly than he had arrived, my new young friend. I will never see him again, and will be dead before his future children are grownn. I hope he lives a long, happy life, on a planet not gone climate crazy, but I have no idea how. I hope his children are cute, healthy,and happy, but he will live until close to the beginning of the the next century, and they will live until the end of the next century, although I do not know how.