Get Off My Table: A Morning in Three Acts

There is a version of me who believes, deeply and sincerely, that all living things have a right to exist.

This is the version of me who feeds the birds.
Who bakes cornbread for squirrels.
Who gently escorts the occasional wasp back out into the world with the patience of a man who has decided that kindness is not conditional.

That version of me was not present this morning.

Act I: The Discovery

I came downstairs like I do most mornings. Everything was quiet, I was a little reflective, not yet fully assembled as a person. The house was still. The light was soft, just a warm glow in the windows, really. It was shaping up to be the kind of morning that invites gratitude.

And then I saw him.

Perched on my dining table.
On my hole puncher, of all things.
As if he had a meeting scheduled.

Now, in fairness, he was not four feet long.

But I would like the record to show that he was not not four feet long, either.

He was large enough to have presence. Heft. Menace. Large enough to suggest history. The kind of insect that doesn’t feel like an insect so much as a survivor of previous geological eras.

And he was flexing.

Those wings.
Slowly. Deliberately.

I don’t know what he was doing, scientifically speaking. But in that moment, my brain interpreted it very clearly:

He was preparing.

Act II: The Standoff

There is a very specific kind of fear that does not ask for permission before it comes barreling through the gates.

It bypasses logic entirely and goes straight to the body.

My breath caught.
My heart rate spiked.
Every system in me said the same thing at once:

Absolutely not.

I have handled snakes with my bare hands. Even been bitten a few times.
I have stood calmly in the presence of creatures that most people would cross the street to avoid.

But this?

This glossy, unpredictable, wing-flexing intruder had chosen my dining table, in my house, my space, my morning, my peace. Something in me just could not make it make sense

For a moment, we just… looked at each other.

And I’m telling you, he looked back. He absolutely did. And I say he because that was definitely no lady.

He didn’t necessarily look with intelligence. He leered with malice. My brain filled in the rest of the story quickly:

This thing has a plan.
I am in the plan.

This plan must be aborted.

Act III: The Flip Flop

Fear, when it reaches a certain threshold, does something interesting. Typically, it is one of two things:

It either paralyzes you…
or it hands the wheel to something far more decisive.

That’s when my philosophy left the room.

The man who believes in coexistence stepped aside, and in his place stood a much older version of humanity. The one that does not negotiate with unexpected movement on the dining table.

The flip flop came off.

And in that moment, there was no hesitation. No internal debate. No moral framework to consult. I felt like a soldier. Forged in the fires of a primordial and ancient codex that I neither wrote nor controlled.

Only a single, unified objective:

Get. Off. My. Table.

What followed was swift, effective, and, if I’m being honest, more than a little theatrical. (Okay, hysterical, if you must know.)

There may have been a line from an action movie involved. Although I don’t think Bruce Willis delivered it with as much gusto as I did.

There were certainly words my mother would not have approved of.

And then…

Silence.

Aftermath

The house returned to stillness.

The light was just as soft as before.
The morning, in many ways, resumed its original shape.

But something had shifted.

Because here’s the truth:

I still believe that all living things have a right to exist. I really do.

But my dining room table is invitation only.