LADYBUG PLAGUE UPDATE

THEM LADYBUGS ARE NO LAUGHING MATTER IN ILLINOIS.

I live on the Illinois/Iowa border out here in a place called the Quad Cities ("your home for Mississippi River flooding.")� And it's ladybug hell up�here right now.� You might go, "Surely a ladybug or two is nothing more�than a�funny little menace.� They're cute and friendly, right?"��

Normal ladybugs are red.� You might see one or two during the summer.� Neat-o, they look like little VW's and they're cute.�

THESE new critters are more of a yellow and hail from what I'd guess to be either the 3rd or 4th plane of Hell.� And when they buzz yer head, they make a shrill buzzing noise that definitely�is ladybug for, "Yes, i DO mean you harm." �

Lemme put it to you this way -- between the time I left my office and made it to my car today, I had three of 'em go down my shirt and swatted another 7 off my clothes.� That's 10 bugs in a 1/2 block walk.� THAT'S how bad it is.� It's like bordering on John Carpenter movie kinda horrific.��

And the damn things BITE.� Or maybe they PINCH.� Nobody knows for sure.� They just hurt like heck.�

And when you�smoosh 'em, they EXPLODE�into a pile of�rancid yellow ooze.� That reeks.� I'm serious, you can smell it off the sidewalks as you walk down the street, it's that noxious.

Articles on the�things are literally running on A-1 in papers throughout�the�Midwest, coz these little boogers are out of control.

I'm a�guy whose only irrational fear�in life is BEES.� I'm deathly allergic to the suckers, and I act like a complete and total ninny around 'em.��So it's extra fun to now have a whole new strain of yellow, bee-sized non-bees flying around your�head all day.

Come help us kill them, Dave.�

Shane Brown
Rock Island, Illinois