Do you think its wrong to step on bugs and stuff?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’m 22 years old, a lifeguard at my local beach. The other day I was getting out of my car to go to work and the parking lot was crawling with like a thousand little hermit crabs that the tide washed up from a storm the night before. I was going to walk barefoot to the beach and avoid them but I was running late so I put my sneakers on my feet and just jogged through them. I couldn’t avoid stepping on and crushing a bunch of these little crabs.

Now I’m actually a pretty good guy, but some dude and his kid saw me stamping through and approached me when I was wiping my feet off on the sand to remove the layer of little crab guts and exoskeletons that got gunked up in the treads of my running shoes. Basically told me I was careless, shouldn’t be working at the beach, etc.

Was what I did really that wrong? I’m pretty environmentally conscious but I was running late. I’m pretty good about preservation of the environment; although I do step on most bugs I see and smack flies… but honestly the smell of my feet is probably enough to kill those guys. What are your thoughts?

2

I don’t think you did anything wrong. (how did the dickheads get to your location to spout off without doing the same thing ?)

You didn’t do anything wrong because it wasn’t your intention to cruelly kill living things for no reason. That would be wrong and it doesn’t matter what the creature is. You had little choice in the matter and no viable alternative.

I personally dislike intensely people who go about trying to kill things just because they can. It says volumes about their real character to me.

I believe taking the life of any living thing is serious business and should not be done without good reason. Is there anything wrong with that concept ?

3

Any roach or scorpion had better run… If wasps leave me alone I’ll return the favor. I encourage the little green/brown Anole lizards to wander around in my flower plants… Love frogs&toads – outside please… The snails that get on my flowers are picked off,transported across the street and thrown down the hill. There are lots of weeds and grass down there.
I’d have scuffed my shoes through the crabs,at least.

4

Gross, but not wrong.

5

Not wrong. If they were in the parking lot, how do people avoid running them over with their cars? The ones you stepped on might have gotten flattened by someone else anyway.

6

And why is this? 'Cause bugs are, like, gross?

You is one green dude.

I am tempted to say that when I zoom down the beach in my dune buggy I don’t always slow to avoid lifeguards. But that would be wrong. :dubious:

7

I so knew this was coming.
Let the shitstorm begin!

8

No real reason… I find most of them annoying, so I step on them. If a big line of ants start invading my lunchbox, of course I am going to stamp my feet on them.

9

When I zoom down the beach in my dune buggy, I stop to watch the buxom lifeguards run in slow motion. :smiley:

10

Why not just move your lunch?

Quite aside from the fact I find the idea of killing for ‘no real reason’ personally repugnant, there’s thousands of ants in a colony- if a ‘big line’ of them have found your food, you’ll have to stamp on a hell of a lot of them to stop them coming…

11

You didn’t do anything wrong in the philosophical sense, although i can see how a child might not agree.

I actually read an interesting essay on this subject this morning:

http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/how-much-should-we-worry-about-death/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20AeonMagazineEssays%20(Aeon%20Magazine%20Essays)

12

Smarter to simply move your food - since you’re the human with the big complex modern brain it seems weird that you’d resort to primitive “stamping” as a remedy against insects. That’s the most intelligent strategy you could come up with, really? All righty, then. :rolleyes:

As to your original scenario, I am also curious how the other guy and his kid were in the same locale as you without squashing crabs. That just makes no logical sense.

Also, well, sometimes stepping on bugs, or crabs, or frogs, or whatever, is unavoidable sometimes. But because you find them “annoying” is not a valid reason. Unless they are mosquitoes or fleas, in which case go for it.

13

I’m not trying to be judgmental, but I would’ve done everything possible to avoid stepping on the little crabs. I had one for a pet as a kid, and believe it or not she had a personality. Makes me sick to think of someone stepping on these little guys because they were inconvenient. :frowning:

14

eat what you off.

15

How were you making up any time if you then stopped to wipe your shoes and chat?

And why couldn’t you just drag your feet along, shoving them aside and creating a path, instead of stomping on them? Your shoes would not have got messed and you would not waste time cleaning them. That’s what I would have done, I think.

16

What about rats? I used to think the only good rat was a dead one. (Think *The Black *Death in Europe yes I know it was actually the fleas).

Anyway one day my crew and I were cleaning up a yard. I picked up an over turned wooden box and there was a mother rat with several babies inside. The mother actually stood up on its hind legs and gave me a look that seemed to say, “kill me, but please leave my children be.” I put the box back down and told everyone to leave it alone.

17

I believe that the proper response might be…

[spoiler]“Oh yeah? Well if you took care of your crabs the way you take care of your kid, maybe I wouldn’t have this problem now, would I…?”

Happy Holidays from your Ex- Lifeguard Friend

This Hallmark moment is available with a limited edition beachball/sunglasses ornament that doesn’t smell like Feet at All.
Hallmark: when you care enough to pay Polite Canadians to do your insulting for you.
[/spoiler]

18

Squashing bugs for no reason is wrong I think, but we all have different lines that we draw when deciding on what is a valid reason.

If we’re really honest with ourselves, we could safely and peacefully share our homes with most common household pests. Some household pests eat other household pests, so it may be best to just maintain the balance.

Still, it seems the cultural norm that extermination of household pests is o.k. because not wanting bugs in your home counts as a reason for killing them. You’re not killing them for no reason, you have a reason: you don’t want bugs in your house.

Someone may actually choose not to do home extermination because they’re fine with seeing a few bugs around their home but- realizing that many other people are not o.k. with seeing bugs- they may follow up with extermination at their place of business. If you’ve never seen the extremes in people’s reactions to seeing a bug at a hotel or restaurant, trust me: not wanting to hear people freak out and yell at you can seem like a pretty good reason to kill some bugs.

Other people see a bug, then fear if they turn their attention away from it that it might crawl on them. Eeew! It might crawl on me! A bug! Crawling on me! So, they kill it but they don’t kill it for no reason, they have a reason: they’re scared it may crawl on them.

Other people just have it deeply ingrained in them that bugs are bad and/or gross. Not much thought goes through their head when they step on a bug, it’s just their natural impulse. They don’t sadistically find joy in it, they’re just programmed to step on bugs. These people aren’t killing for no reason, their reason is “bugs are to be stepped on.”
I think at the very least those of us who feel programmed that “bugs are to be stepped on” should work to overcome that. The irrational fear that “it might crawl on me” is another reaction that I thing we ought to try to overcome.

I work in the service industry and, sorry, I’m going to keep killing bugs at work. There are just too many people who freak out over such things. Maybe not fair to the bugs, but I can’t bring myself to care. I’d rather make it through my 8 hours at work without people flipping out at me. Of course, this goes both ways: I once caught a mouse at work, I covered it and crushed it (very quick death)- I knew full well that there was an equal chance that someone would deem me a monster for killing a harmless little mouse. The service industry very often puts you in lose/lose situations.

At home, I’ve never bothered too much with pests. I’ve always been in apartments, and most of the landlords I’ve had have been a hassle to deal with anyway so it’s just a headache to get it taken care of.

We had termites that had to be dealt with a few years ago- my landlord didn’t want his building eaten away. Currently, we are beginning to suspect that the one mouse we’ve been seeing over the past month might actually be several mice. Mice leave bigger poops than silverfish, and they also eat through food packaging. So, we may decide that we have a “reason” to kill the mice. We’re not thrilled about it though.

19

I wouldn’t go out of my way to kill one unless there was a major pest control problem at the house but…

Well, one day at work I saw something move. I thought it was a mouse and started chasing it. I chased it right into the ladies restroom and it was a roach and I raised my foot to send it to roach Heaven and it looked at me with its big brown eyes…

No, I just decided it was such an impressive specimen of roachdom that I caught it, put it in a box, damn near accidentally mailed it to a client but got that straightened out at the last minute, thank OG, took it home, named it Gregor Samsa.

Never had much of a personality, did Gregor. He did like to eat baloney and didn’t mind a bit of beer either.

20

Traps went down this morning. 6 Mice in the past 9 hours.
All put out of their misery fairly quickly after getting themselves trapped. :frowning: