Day 30

Today, I started a new gig. I have a new office in a new part of the building. The building that suffers a chronic and widespread rodent problem. I'm not kidding when I say that "baiting mice" was an unofficial bullet point on our former CFO's job description. And, yes, I do mean Chief Financial Officer. This executive took his mice-clearing task as seriously as any other. But Dick has moved on and, alas, the mice have returned. With a vengeance. Luckily we're relocating in a few months. For that, I am grateful. 

But today... today, I saw this big guy crawling around on my colleague's desk:

Real or fake?

Okay, well not that exact guy--that's my kid's plastic roach, spotted on the living room floor tonight. But it was a bug that big. An insect that looked a little more prehistoric, more like this: 

That, my friends, is a stink bug, which we discovered after my friend smashed it, as I stood by for support. (My apologies, oh compassionate ones.) These bugs really do emit a potent stench. I was sort of shocked. I did not know that stink bugs, those highly invasive insects that certainly are a big problem in my home state of Pennsylvania, had migrated to Vermont. 

I started to doubt our ID: the smashed bag was actually longer and leaner than the lil' stinkers you tend to see in pictures. (Oh why didn't I grab my iPhone for proper classification?) But one couldn't deny that malodor and later this evening,  I found this Burlington Free Press bit about a stink bug sighting in Vermont. Should we be reporting today's run-in to Vermont's entomology authorities? (I'm kidding but not really ... your thoughts?) 

And I can't help but worry (a mad skill of mine): Did I carry in this critter? My parents and sister were in for the holidays, from Pennsylvania. Was Mr. Stinky a stowaway, passing between us, from sweater to sweater? I'm itchy just thinking about it.