If you live in New York or Connecticut or basically anywhere in New England, I’m gonna say it’s more likely than not that you know what these things are. By these things, I mean the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug, probably the most annoying insect that I’ve ever come across. They’ve infested my house since I was in middle school, and I am serious when I say I don’t go more than two days without seeing one somewhere in or around my house. I’ll be peacefully doing some homework at my desk, or making breakfast in my kitchen, or trying to watch TV in the living room, and I’ll hear the obnoxiously loud buzzing above my head. I’ll look up, just to see what I already know I’ll see, another stinkbug mindlessly throwing themselves at the light above me.

Even though I don’t think they’re the smartest insects, I will give them credit for being tough. You can try to get rid of them with all the methods you want, you can think you finally got rid of them, and just when you sit back and relax thinking your stick-bug free, they’re back like they never left. They are relentless, and despite my family’s efforts to get rid of them, they still come back to hang around my house every year. But as I been thinking about them more through this assignment, I realize that they aren’t much different than people.

We all know somebody as tough or relentless as the stinkbugs I described above. Despite all the things bad happening to them or all the challenges that present themselves to them, they all come back in a big way. I hope we all can take this idea to heart, especially during all this crazy COVID-19 stuff. This time will not define us or bring us down, and hopefully with some optimism, once this virus finally ends we ourselves will come back in a big way.

Austin Waldron