is waif
ARE EARWIGS WAIF?
Upon first glance, an earwig is not waif.
The first time I ever saw an earwig, or in this case about two hundred of them, was one summer many years ago. I was outside in our little garden playing away as young children do, thoroughly engrossed in an imaginary game when the fateful event occurred. I reached down and picked up an old discarded flower pot and all hell broke loose. They were suddenly all over me, their vicious pincers clawing and grasping at the air, their creepy legs scuttling and crawling in all directions. I could not escape the horrors of the earwig and to this day I live in fear of the next time an ambush of catastrophic monuments such as this occurs again.
Earwigs do not restrain their wanderings to the outdoors. They feed on plants, fruits and vegetables, of which they find in plenty in the common household kitchen. Seemingly perfect fruit bowls can fall prey to a hoard of hungry earwigs, they lie waiting under kitchen utensils, waiting for the moment they can devour your fresh produce and ruin an afternoon snack.
"I reached down and picked up an old discarded flower pot and all hell broke loose. They were suddenly all over me, their vicious pincers clawing and grasping at the air, their creepy legs scuttling and crawling in all directions."
An old wives’ tale tells it that earwigs are named so because at night they crawl into your ears and eat your brain. Currently, this terrifying tale is just that, but when observing the spine chilling pincers of the earwig you just can’t help but be wary of this lethal weapon and hope you aren’t next on the earwig’s list of victims. Said victims are often the products of their own stupidity, as an earwig can and will pince you if you attempt to pick it up and disturb it from its business. This pince, while small and futile, has been reared by childhood imagination into the most horrific of childhood injuries but does not have the potential to break skin or leave a lasting mark. The trauma associated with an earwig is factually unnecessary, but all the while part of a rather trying experience.
If you have the liberty to discover, at a distance the habits and lifestyle of the earwig, you may decide that they actually do possess a few of the qualities that could contribute to one’s Waifiness. Firstly, an earwig does not care what you, or I, or even any other earwig thinks of it.
They just do their thing, crawl around, eat plants, live life. This total disregard for societal norms and structures is something to be respected as their freakish appearance can often lead to the earwig being stomped on or exiled. This brings me to my second point: the earwig, despite being hated on and screamed at for centuries, has not complained once. Countless insults and banishments would surely cause any other insect to revolt and refuse such horrbid treatment but the earwig just takes it as it comes and continues to earwig along. The root of so much
hatred towards earwigs comes from their appearance. Their pincers are creepy! But also kind of cool? Used to fend off predators and assist with mating rituals, an earwig’s pincers are not intentionally a weapon of attack and do not pose any major physical threats to humans. They serve as a hip and functional accessory for our earwig friends and make them quite unique - a very Waif trait.
Once you can look past the fact that one could possibly crawl into your ear and eat your brain, you have to admit that the earwig is pretty Waif. They do their own thing and don’t let the abundance of hate they receive affect their happiness or lifestyle. They have no secret agenda to take away our health care or start any wars; they just want to eat plants and crawl around. Earwigs are Waif because they are unique and have cool pincers that they (usually) don't want to pince us with.
I saw an earwig the other day. It was crawling alongside the skirting board in my living room, minding its own business. As I watched it scuttle along, I reflected on the hatred that I had previously thrown in the general direction of the earwig species. I felt a sense of regret at my never having stopped to appreciate the earwig for their immense individuality and extreme Waifiness. I then made peace with this regret by observing the earwig as it promptly annihilated another in its path and I confirmed my role as an earwig appreciator, from afar.