Appreciating Beetles.

I opened the door to go into my kitchen last night and saw a beetle wandering around the tiled floor. Beetles do that, you know. If you stand still they wander in a seemingly aimless manner as though they can’t make up their minds where they want to get to. You have to make it up for them, as I did when I guided it carefully to the space under the washing machine.

When I got up this morning, what appeared to be the same beetle was standing still as a statue on the carpet runner in front of the sink unit. They do that, too. If you move about they stand still, seemingly in the instinctive belief that they’re less likely to get trodden on. But I wanted to walk up and down the runner myself – you know, to fetch the milk from the fridge and a bowl of breakfast cereal and so on – and it seemed likely that the poor little chap was rather less safe than it thought it was. And so I nudged it and it ran straight back under the washing machine. Did you know that beetles can learn from experience? Me neither.

The thing is, I get very few visitors to my house, what with being a recluse and feeling reluctant to catch the wretched Covid thing, so it’s nice to have a beetle for company occasionally. They’re so much less irritating than people.