Love is… Driving all over town looking for an electric bug zapper – the kind shaped like a tennis racket. Hitting up four stores because it’s already “out of season.” Driving without a license… because paperwork always escapes in my hands. 

And my beloved – frozen in a panic attack: I’d leave open all the doors and windows in my home office for the whole day – sunlight, sea breeze. 

Poor thing, my poor thing… I’m still observing him: is he faking it? He’s a brilliant actor – sings, dances, it’s a shame he’ll never make it to the studios. And how could he, when his darling sweetheart keeps paralyzing him with bugs and germs? 

Definitely not Nabokov. I mean, in a sense that – not an entomologist. And we don’t keep a shared diary, either as they did with his wife. 

At Dollarama, all I found was a sticky fly trap – “Fly Magnet”. 

At Home Depot – an arsenal of anti-bug weaponry: ultrasonic repellents, but with his sound sensitivity, his head would explode. Then – Halloween classics, like from Ghostbusters: a tank on your back and a gun on a wire. But for Halloween, he’ll probably want us dressed as Joker and Harley Quinn. Also found “Wasp Killer Foam” – spray it on a sharp nest, and it hardens – looks like a living art installation if you keep feeding the wasps and occasionally pump in air. 

Outdoor option – “Flying Insect Light Trap”, a lantern that lures them with light. 

Aisle 66 at Home Depot – stocked for a full-scale insect invasion, but no basic electric tennis racket. 

Might as well run to the police station and ask for a taser or stun gun. It is right along the route of all these stores! 

At London Drugs – where you can buy meds, cosmetics, snacks, and all the little things you always forget – I found a tripod with a propeller that shooed flies away from fruit: “Fly Fighter Cordless Insect Trap”. Smart engineering, but useless. 

At Walmart, I found fly swatters. 

Expanded my vocabulary! 

“Bug Zappers” – tennis rackets that zap with electricity – that’s what I was hunting for in every store. But summer, as I was told, is “over,” so the rackets were only left at Canadian Tire. 

Oh, these bug-hunting adventures… 

By the way, when we moved in together, my beloved brought a salt gun – for shooting bugs. He and Alisa used to have fun with it on the porch in the evenings – she’s terrified of insects too. 

Came back – all bugs caught. I keep thinking: he could’ve made a scene! Thrown a tantrum or, worse – a full-blown manly meltdown. I do know about his thing with bugs and germs. Why torture him? But he endures. Freezes or silently fights through – with unbelievable effort – I can’t even imagine! 

Fights through – and we hike dusty trails, eat unwashed berries straight from bushes, feed birds from our hands, and tolerate mountain bugs flying into our mouths. 

Sometimes he overcomes, sometimes he freezes. Anyway, I keep tossing him new reasons to panic – just so he always has room to grow.