like the homeland, only bigger

back in h-town, every spring or summer (sad, but i’ve been away so long that i can’t remember what season it was in…), a swarm of flying lust would storm the city. there would be a swarm of very small black bugs with a little red band on their abdomens that would be locked in fiery butt-to-butt passion littering every available surface. you’d see the occasional sad singleton flying along, looking for his/her hookup, of course, but the conjoined copulators were what earned them the common name of “love bugs” (or, fuck bugs, if you were a crass little kiddo who thought cussing was funny. so, like, plenty of us).

i still have no idea what technical species those little guys were, but with their bright red belly band and cute little round-tipped black-barred clear wings, they were quite visually distinctive, even when not fused to a friend. and lo! this morning, i’ve discovered the equivalent for this zip code. i haven’t seen them before in the 5+ years i’ve been in this state, but here you go, the MD equivalent of love bugs:

yesterday morning while driving to work, one of these bright orange-and-black beetle-oid creatures landed on my windshield. he tenaciously hung on through the 40mph gales, only to fly off later at a stop light quite a bit away from his origin point. apparently, he was testing out the comfiness of my car, the way you’d test out a mattress at the store before you buy it. this morning, i was greeted by a host of these guys swarming over the roof & trunk of the car. 3 of them were obliviously enjoying the pleasures of each other’s company, and by the time i could get the camera, a 4th had joined up as well. they’re even more strikingly colored than the houston-area love bugs, and larger to boot (hey!! i thought everything was bigger in TX!!), and at least some of them enjoy the missionary position, though other stylistic preferences are available as well. here’s the arty, back-lit shot of the love to set the mood for hot summer nights, or misty summer mornings for everyone: