The Bug on My Car Window

held on, shifting position many times as I drove. Had I seen it before leaving, I would have coaxed it off.

When I sped up to 55 mph, it climbed onto my roof.

Then, I didn't see it again.

I want to think it let go and flew or floated off somewhere.

I don't even know what kind of bug it is or was.

But I do know this: it had what we all want -- stick-to-it-ive-ness and grit.

(My friend Jill sent me this:

"It's some kind of hemipteran. It looks like an assassin or ambush bug, Order Hemiptera, Family Reduviidae. Hemipterans have outer wings that are half solid and half transparent, and they have soda-straw-like sucking mouthparts.

They suck various things. Leaf-footed bugs are sucking on Ronn's tomatoes. Some ambush other insects. Medical historians believe that when Charles Darwin was in South America, he was bitten by Triatoma, a bloodsucking "kissing bug" that infected him with the parasite that causes Chagas disease."

She should know: she's a zoologist.)