Last Wednesday, at about 3:40am, a masked gang broke into Chopticon High School, in the Morganza area of St. Mary’s County, Southern Maryland.
Their mission? To release bugs.
Not the kind of bugs that cause your program to crash, or your iPhone to reboot when it receives a message containing a sequence of Unicode characters. Not even the kind of bugs that spy on you, surreptitiously monitoring your private conversation.
No, in an act of clearly irresponsive bug discharge, the gang released 72,000 ladybugs (or ladybirds as we call them in the UK).
The purpose? It was all part of a student prank.
The juveniles have been charged with 4th degree burglary, property damage and disruption of school activities. Three others involved are said to be adults, and can expect a criminal investigation.
In the Fox News report above, some of the students complain that the school is being “disrespectful” in not allowing some of the perpetrators of the prank from participating in their graduation, scheduled for today. Protests have been held, calling for the school to change its position.
Never mind that the school has incurred expense, and police time has been wasted, because of the ladybug clean-up… what matters is that these kids miss out on their graduation ceremony because they acted like a bunch of doofuses.
Apparently the bugs were bought on Amazon. Seriously. Did I fall asleep for a while? When did the world get that weird?
Oh look, Amazon is suggesting I buy my dad some ladybugs for Father’s Day. Thank goodness. I was stumped for ideas until now.
"Did I fall asleep for a while? When did the world get that weird?"
I think it's just that we live in Middle-earth and others live in the alternative, lesser and more odd Earth. Yes, yes, some will argue the darkness in Middle-earth but that's not to say there isn't darkness on Earth. Besides, I could state that it is after the Dark Lord is defeated. Others might suggest that many in this world are in Middle-earth but I would much rather live in Middle-earth and besides, if you look at the Hobbits, they happily existed together, governing in a peaceful way. That's unheard of on Earth.
In any case, the world is indeed very weird but I'm not sure it is any more weird than before – just different and far easier to relay and see messages (and therefore news) as well as differences (from photography from space to the Galapagos being mapped by Google to…). Selling ladybirds on Amazon is bizarre but I somehow imagine there's far more bizarre things sold online, probably on Amazon too.
I think Amazon suggests ladybugs as a Father's Day gift because gardeners use them to eliminate pests. if you can keep them from migrating to another garden, they're a great non-toxic insecticide.
Ah yes.. as I recall – now you say it – they will get rid of aphids … so that could be it, or at least one reason they sell them. Still, buying live animals[1] over mail always seemed odd to me. At least for my point, that's what I think is strange – selling ladybirds maybe not so strange.
[1] I suppose dead animals over mail might be worse (actually..make that any medium…) – especially for those dealing with the package.