Trekkychick

*If you click the links, this post doubles as your daily Bible study

Fred was here

I’m pretty cool, and I like to show it by driving my car with the top down. Except that my Ford Escort has no top, so I drive with the windows rolled down, which I tell myself is practically the same thing. The open window invites winged passersby into my car despite my clearly-marked “No insects allowed” bumper sticker taped to the rear window (I guess bugs flying in through the front windows don’t see it, or can’t read it because they suffer motion-sickness when reading at high speeds, or can’t read it because they’re bugs). One such passerby—-I called him Fred but you don’t have to, because he’s dead now, so in deference to his passing please refer to him as Dead Fred if his name comes up in conversation—-was a feathery white speck about the size of a pencil point, who nonetheless endangered my life every time he flew in front of my face to say hello as I drove. I would roll down the window and calmly explain his options (“You can leave peacefully now, or I will park this car and forcibly remove you from the premises”) but Fred never listened and I never followed through on my threats, because besides the near-death experiences he wasn’t really causing me any harm. Plus I figured that, being a bug, his lifespan couldn’t be terribly long, and he’d probably pass on naturally, and I’d pass guiltless into Heaven one day letting God know I had valued the antennae on the bug as much as He values the hairs on a sparrow and we’d have a good friendly laugh about the whole thing.

That was the plan but Fred persisted and grew larger than life—-he was almost the size of two pencil points at the time of his death (R.I.P., Fred, R.I.P.). I was flummoxed by both his rapid growth toward bug obesity and his longevity. Doesn’t a bug in carptivity (get it??) die more quickly than a bug who breathes in fresh, polluted air?

It was only through thorough investigation of Fred’s living situation—aka my car—-that I spotted the culprit: My penchant for eating on the go. In my haste, I tend to accrue a few plastic coffee cups, candy bar wrappers, bags that once contained pastries from Sweet Pea bakery, and the like, in the receptacle that doubles as my car. I am fastidious about removing the waste, just as soon as one of the containers actually starts to stink. It turns out the remnants from the coffee cups and the nano-morsels inside the bags, adding up to no more than a few moldy calories for the average human, was enough to feed an army of Freds for several decades to come. I had been inadvertently intentionally sustaining Fred just as Jesus sustained the 5000 hungry people with five loaves of bread and two fish.

So the way to rid my car of Fred the everlasting bug was to rid my car of its everlasting trash. I cleaned and polished every compartment, and Fred watched, and I really felt good about my decision to purify my car’s environment while eliminating Fred’s will to live through slow starvation.

But Fred was not to be so easily deterred, as he told me as he flew at me the next morning on my way to work. As had become our ritual, I pushed the button that automatically rolls down the window, and I suggested he exit the automobile. I think he was trying when the button stuck, and the window began to automatically return to its closed state, catching poor Fred in the crossfire. I mourned Fred’s passing for a few…..wait, what was I talking about?

After forgetting Fred, I drove for 40 days and 40 nights in peace. But apparently Fred wanted to leave a little piece of him behind, besides that piece that remains on the window. Fred bred when he was in my car. And now I’m raising his children.

–Troi out