Lightning Bugs

It's interesting, the things you take for granted, until you have to explain them to somebody else. It forces you to think about it and evaluate it and usually results in a new appreciation of something you may not pay much attention to otherwise.

I was playing poker online last night. It's fun, because you play with people from all over the world, and if they are friendly you can learn a lot of interesting things about where they live. Last night I was at a table with two Aussies, a German, a French Canadian, an Argentine and Jess, one of my regular poker buddies from California. (Note: Usually it isn't just Jess, it is Jess and Jim. They've been best friends for about 25 years and typically if I find one playing poker the other one is there, just left or will be there soon. You can tell they have been friends for a long time because of the way they unmercifully berate each other. It's fun. They both play guitar. Neat. Anyhow, Jim had abandoned us to watch a movie with his wife.)

So out of nowhere Jess says, "Kat, do you have fireflies?" I said sure we've got fireflies, but we call them lightning bugs. Then he says, "What do they look like?" I was baffled. What do they look like? They look like a lightning bug. I paused. Maybe this was the start of a joke. Then he says, "I never saw one." Now I was really baffled. I thought everybody had lightning bugs. Turns out, they pretty much don't exist west of Kansas in the U.S. Jess said they look cool in movies, but he's never seen one in the real world.

Jess is a smart fellow, so I knew there was no use telling him the nuts and bolts of what a lightning bug looks like. He can google for that. Instead I told him how we used to catch them every night when I was a kid, and fill up a Mason jar. We'd let them flash for a while and then turn them loose. The next night, we'd do it all over again. About this time one of the Aussies piped up. He didn't know what the hell we were talking about at all, so now I did have to figure a way to describe it. I settled on, "It's a flying insect with a bioluminescent bulb on its ass that flashes on and off to impress the lady lightning bugs." He said, "Ace!" His friend, the girl Aussie, left the table because she doesn't like bugs. Neither do I, but a lightning bug isn't an ordinary bug. It's a lightning bug.

Jess was pleased with the story and even more delighted when I told him we have glowworms at The Dismals, which is a natural attraction near where I live. It's one of the only places in the world outside of New Zealand where they exist. That's really cool! And I never even thought about it before.