Accessorizing with Lightning Bugs

Yesterday's post reminded me of a funny story my brother told my kid around the same time he told him how to hypnotize a chicken. I debated whether to publish it here or not, cause after all, this is my blog, not my brother's, but what the heck? I've been in computer training all week (I've never sat still this long in my life) and will be there the rest of the week so it's not likely I'll come up with any brilliant thing to share in the next couple of days...

So. My brother likes to ride Harleys. He also happens to have a full beard. I know what you're thinking. Well, it's true. Back in the day, it was even more true. He has always lived out in the country. I think that's because he likes riding his Harley back and forth to work.

And when I was growing up there were a lot more lightning bugs (I think more genteel people call them "fireflies") than there are nowadays, thanks to evil pesticides and ambient light and whatnot. My husband, who grew up in northern New Mexico, had never seen or heard of them until we went back to visit the first time. We were sitting in my friend's living room and there was a stray lightning bug flitting around. It was getting kind of dark outside but she hadn't turned up the inside lights yet. I noticed my husband kept blinking and looking all paranoid out of the corner of one eye or the other. Finally someone mentioned the lightning bug and he was so relieved because he thought he was hallucinating! Every time he'd see it blink, he'd look toward the little light, but it would be gone!

Anyway, back to the story. My brother was riding his Harley down the highway, and apparently he hit a big swarm of them. If you've been around these little critters, you know that when they get smashed (again, like yesterday's bats, I admit I may have incurred some karmic debt as a child but let's move along for now...) they glow for a little while, like phosphorescent paint.

So my brother pulls over at a gas station and walks in all cool like, except he notices he's getting some unusually frightened looks from people. Like they don't want him to catch them staring. Like they are baffled and afraid. He figured they didn't care for his leather jacket and full beard. Etc. You get the picture. Gosh, people are always judging bikers! ;-)

Well, finally, he gets home and looks in the mirror -- only to discover he's got streaks of glowing bits of smashed lightning bugs all through his beard and eyebrows and face where he tried to brush them off. LOL!