My classroom is a haven for insects. I'm convinced that they must singularly seek my picture windows and find a way into the cinderblock walls and linoleum floor. I'm not entirely certain as to why.
The year inevitably starts with an influx of lady bugs in the fall. They are not the rare orange kind or the ones with but a few spots, just average lady bugs. There are not hundreds, but it's usually an infiltration of say 30 or 40 fluttering around my room, causing the occasional squeel or disruption. Invetiably, they die in the room, turning my flourescent light fixtures into their sarcophogus, casting shadowy dark spots through the clear plastic.
Occasionally, I get a wasp's nest. Usually, this means one or two wasps inhibit me from opening the windows. The wasps are trapped between the screen and the fold out glass so that we may observe them as they develop. It's usually only a few, and they're the spindly, almost spidery looking wasps that look like they must have some thin and terrible stinger to assault me with.
At the end of the school year, as I dust shelves and move books, I discover the dried bodies of flies, an occasional moth and spider, and leftover lady bugs from last fall. An entemologist would be able to track the course of the year from the insect bodies that are threatening my happily walled off little nook in the school district.
I'm just wondering when the influx will stop, or at least, I hope someone cleans my light fixtures this summer.
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