Now many more days until July?

I stood there, staring at it. Poking at it.

Sizing it up.

I was considerably taller than it, which is saying a lot since I’m not that tall.

When I got married my husband Greg got up to say a few words at our reception. He started out by saying, “I’ll keep this short, just like the Comeaus.”

But that was 24 years ago. Last Sunday I was faced with something more pressing.

More urgent. The words disgusting and frightening came to mind.

I summoned up every bit of courage I had and reached out for it. I even touched it. And then I tried to grab it. By the leg! Suddenly – Gasp! – it moved. The sneaky little bugger lying on its back with its arms and legs extended to the sky had tricked me.

Well played, Mr. June Bug, well played.

Here I was wanting to enjoy the vast expanse of my back deck and here was this ferocious June bug preventing me from doing so.

Okay, maybe I’m being a bit melodramatic – after all, it was only taking up less than a squareinch of patio space.

Still, me and June bugs are not a relationship I want to pursue. It had to go.

I grabbed a plastic container and tried to scoop it up, which instead resulted in me flipping it over a several times like a tumbleweed until I mistakenly pushed it underneath my patio sectional.

Oh well, I thought, out of sight out of mind.

Personally, I’m hoping that once June ends these bugs will vamoose with it.

Just who did they think were anyway, showing up on our back deck on May 28?

Hello!!! You’re JUNE bugs. Personally, I have no love for bugs at all.

I know there are some that have a great purpose in life and are important for their own reasons. Pollination comes to mind.

But I certainly couldn’t come up with one redeeming quality of a mosquito as I had one buzz- ing around my ear for 20 minutes one evening last week.

And yet, still, I’ve been known (more often than not) to be a softie when it comes to bugs. If there is one crawling across our kitchen floor I’m more apt to scoop it up with a piece of paper and release it outdoors as opposed to having it meet the bottom of my shoe.

I’ll open the door and try to herd out a fly, sometimes for five or 10 minutes, even talking to it, explaining to it to take advantage of the opportunity it’s being presented with – “The door is open. You should fly outside.” – as if it understands the English language.

Then again, for all I know they may be the superior being. After all, they bug me more than I bug them, so I guess they have the upper hand.

Meanwhile, as I went to sit on my patio furniture last Sunday, I looked down and there it was, back again – the June bug, tormenting me in slow motion by just sitting there, barely moving. To be honest, they’re not really the smartest insect. It’s like they just sit there waiting to be killed.

But ‘ Tina the softie’ instead scoops it up once again, and then viciously flings it off the deck. Well, perhaps vicious isn’t the proper word as my attempt to increase the space between it and I ends up in an epic fail. I see it land in a bush, about two feet away, presumably from where it will launch its next attack on me when I want to enjoy my deck. We will battle another day. Next time June bug…next time.