Thunderbugs are go

I have a strange fondness for thunder bugs. I don't know why but of all the vast and mighty insect kingdom, they are probably the cutest. They're not poisonous, they don't bite and they don't buzz annoyingly. Okay, in humid weather they can swarm and get everywhere, and they itch as they make their ponderous way across your body. But they mean no harm. It's like someone shook a page of type and all the semicolons fell off. They just want to get back home.

I tried to do this as a table, but Firefox puts a massive space in front of it and Explorer puts a massive space in front of the whole post. (Added later: because, I now realise, I did the table in Dreamweaver which set it to 100% width. But I can't be bothered to re-do it now.) So here in straight text is my attitude towards our six legged friends.

Thunder bug

• Inside: will almost certainly live and let live, if it stays off me. Odds are shortened if it crawls across my monitor.
• Outside: ditto

Bee

• Inside: will probably help escape, but have been known to lose patience if bee is especially dense and resists rescue.
• Outside: be free, little brother, and make lots of honey.

Wasp

• Inside: will almost certainly swat. Not half as hard as they think they are: one good zonk and they're down. Hah!
• Outside: will watch warily. Fine if they eat dead caterpillars etc; less so if they go for my food.

Fly

• Inside: will almost certainly spray, 'cos it's easiest.
• Outside: ignore. There's too many of them.

Mosquito

• Inside: die you bastard, die die die. And there's another! Think you're hard enough? Do you? Bring it on!
• Outside: probably won't notice, unless I feel it settle on me.

Butterfly

• Inside: will almost certainly help it out.
• Outside: pretty!

Moth

• Inside: have become more tolerant in my old age; still uneasy with the big flappy kind, especially if I'm about to turn the light out.
• Outside: will probably be dark, so won't notice.

Daddy Longlegs

• Inside: urge to swat is generally overcome by pity at something so pathetic.
• Outside: plenty of room for us both.

Biologist J.B.S. Haldane is credited with remarking that if God exists, then to judge by his creation we can deduce he has "an inordinate fondness for beetles" because there's so many of them. He must love the thunder bugs, then.