Driving across South Dakota on I-90, even in heavy summer traffic—or, as they would call it in many other places, light traffic—can give a person plenty of time to think. Especially once the news analysis from NPR is starting to repeat itself, you have memorized the repeated ads and local news on both of the country music stations you can pick up, and you still haven’t figured out how to download audio books onto the portable media player you bought specifically for trips like this.
At this point, somewhere between mile markers 73 and 237, there’s not much else to do but ponder great thoughts about significant subjects. Such as: how do the biggest, juiciest bugs always manage to hit the windshield right in front of the driver’s eyes?
It’s inevitable. You stop for gas, you scrub the windshield clean of greasy green grasshopper guts and other unidentifiable bug body parts, and you pull back out onto the highway. And within the first couple of miles, splat! Not on the passenger’s side, not toward the top of the windshield, not in some inconspicuous spot along the edge. Nope. Right in your field of vision, exactly at eye level.
The “why” of this isn’t at issue. It’s fairly obvious that smearing up windshields right where drivers most need to see through them is about getting even. It’s sacrificial sabotage, in revenge for the millions of innocent victims of vehicular insecticide on our highways.
But how do they do it?
Is it something to do with aerodynamics? Does the air flow over the hood carry the biggest bugs right toward eye level on the driver’s side?
Or do they work in pairs? One bug as the designated saboteur, the second flying alongside as the spotter. “All right, George, you’re nearly there. Closer, closer . . . a little to the left. No, not that way—your other left! Now just a little higher—a bit more—got it. Aim for the whites of her eyes, George. You’re on it, you’re on it, almost there . . . Faster, faster, faster—now!”
Splat!
“We’ll miss you, George.”
“Next!”
Or possibly I’m overthinking this. Maybe the real explanation is much simpler. As in: “Hey, there’s an SUV. Hold my nectar and watch this.”
“No, Fred, wait—you’re going too fas—”
Splat!
Practical Prairie Woman 