And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords.

Today, after lunch at a picnic table, I noticed that there were two ants in my purse as I put it into the car. Not having time to do anything about it, I made a half-hearted attempt to shoo them away, and then shut them in.

When I got to the group home to drop off my girl, staff there hurried me inside and shut the door firmly behind me.

"There's a giant bug on the door," the staff member offered.

I looked; it was a grasshopper. "Well, have a good day tomorrow," I said to my girl, and to her staff, "I'll get rid of the bug when I go."

I flipped my hand toward the grasshopper on my way out, and he obligingly leaped away from the house. The door opened behind me.

"You let it live?" the staff member asked, somewhere between curious and disbelieving.

"Yeah, it's just a grasshopper, and it's outside..." I trailed off, realizing that if it wasn't self-evident that bugs should be allowed to live outside, there wouldn't be any way to explain. "It's over there now."

I got back in the car and started driving back to my other job. Somewhere along the highway, I felt a tickle on my right arm and looked down to see an ant crawling up it. I flung it off as gently as I could, but a second later, there it was again -- or there was another one -- on my left arm. I resisted the urge to fling it out the window.

As I pulled off the highway, one of the ants crawled up onto my windshield from the inside, looking like a giant Japanese horror movie creature descending from space. Nothing more distracting than the image of a hoard of space-ants coming to take over the planet, when it comes to driving.

Still, I made it to the parking lot safely and was just about to shut the door again -- almost certainly trapping ants inside -- when I remembered my copy of the Hartford Advocate on the seat. I pulled open the car door and picked it up -- and out fell a cricket.

If anyone wants me, I'll be out shopping for a terrarium and a bunch of tiny little bunk beds.

I figure I might as well just give in at this point.