The Water Bug Killer
Tuesday Scribblings on handling problems when no one else will
I was in the girls’ locker room at my high school when I established my role as the water bug killer. It was near the end of class and the locker room was full of my classmates, all of us changing out of gym clothes and back into our acid-washed jeans and sweatshirts. I looked up from my locker and noticed I was the only one there. On the floor, not far from me, was a large water bug. I walked over to the bug, stepped on it, feeling the squish and crunch under my Reeboks. As soon as I yelled out, “It’s okay, I took care of it,” the other girls returned to their lockers as if nothing had happened.
I’ve told this story in job interviews and to middle schoolers, to friends and family members. I use it as an analogy for how I show up in different environments, ready to deal with whatever comes up that no one else seems to want to address. The water bug killer often goes unacknowledged or underappreciated. But for me it’s part of my identity.
I have to get pretty frustrated to step into my water bug killer role, though sometimes it comes about because I’ve grown impatient in waiting for someone with more authority to make a decision or take action. While that initial story involved way more violence, more often the water bug killer in me shows up as making phone calls, meeting with someone to address a problem, taking charge in a situation that has everyone throwing up their hands in confusion. I’ve been called a natural leader, though I don’t know if I agree with that. I would say I’m a reluctant leader: I take on a leadership position only if no one else seems interested enough to step up and take care of a problem that strikes me as being easy to solve.
With everything that’s been going on in the USA over the last few years, it often strikes me that we are in desperate need of a water bug killer. Hell, we need several of them. Folks who come in and deal with the fascists, the racists, the hateful eight (times two) that make up the current administration. People who lift their foot to squash the problems and challenges that keep popping up.
The truth is we all need to play this role and not hold back waiting for someone else to handle things, because there are way too many water bugs. We have to make the calls to our legislators in support of human rights, organize anti-ICE protests, donate to food banks or fundraisers to support families affected by ICE, and this is just the start. Maybe we can’t be the one who crunches the water bugs under our feet, but we can make it easier for the water bug killer to come in and do the job that needs to be done.