While that first crisp morning might be the indicator that summer is finally considering releasing its sweaty, nasty, mosquito-infested hold on our lives, it also heralds the beginning of a new season. Good bye hurricane season, hello flu season. I know this because every form of pharmacy has stuck a sign out trying to lure me in for a shot. I don’t like shots. I’d rather have summer. But maybe without the mosquitoes.

What I find a little frightening are the grocery stores that want you to be “Shot While You Shop.” That’s just flat out alarming. Are they going after moving targets now? Why do I suddenly feel like big game hunting has come to town and I’m on the trophy list? Are they posting snipers in the produce department? I’m terrified now to slip in for a loaf of bread that I won’t be targeted by some half-crazed pharmacist with a quota, a blow gun and a flu shot dart. We’ve gone from gang-related drive-by shootings to viral-prevention walk-by shootings. The world has gone crazy.

Did you know that you’re even supposed to get a flu shot for your dog, too? Oh yes! If you don’t, then you’re a negligent, uncaring animal hater that could be responsible for some other dog getting a stuffy nose and watery eyes. Maybe even a low-grade fever and sneezing. Of course, if you don’t get a flu shot for your dog then you’ll get lumped into the group of people who don’t give their children vaccines which thereby endangers all of us. So maybe it’d just be easier to sneak in that flu shot when Rover gets his rabies update.

I’m all about everyone having a flu shot. And don’t bother crying at me about how the last time you had a flu shot you got the flu. You probably already had the flu when you got the shot. It takes ten days to incubate. Unless you’re a dog, then I guess it incubates in dog years or something. In the next few weeks, I’ll even man up and get one myself. What the heck, maybe I’ll get pneumonia, shingles and rabies while I’m at it. Or I’ll simply make a grocery list and wait to get picked off in the freezer section by the pharmacy flu snipers!

I get it that maybe you hate your job. I’ve had jobs I hated. One summer, I sold pots and pans door to door. Clarification: I went door to door but sold zero pots and pans. I hated it. When you hate your job, though, the smart thing to do is find another job and move on. I suggest professionalism in the hopes you’ll get a good reference and you never know who you’ll run into in the business world. Unless you work at the Philadelphia Insectarium and Butterfly Pavilion. Then all bets are totally off.

Last month, a group of employees at the Philly Insectarium finally got fed up with I don’t even know what. The list of things that could be horrible about working at the Philadelphia Insectarium are almost uncountable, starting with spending every day with a bunch of creepy bugs that you’re not allowed to stomp on, smash, or spray with Raid. I can only guess that the employee benefits package sucks. As if they’re going to offer medical or life insurance to people who work around deadly six-eyed sand spiders. Another day, another claim on the company policy! Employees dropping like rare, endangered, poisonous flies!

Whatever their reasons, employees started carting off boxes of bugs. More than 7,000 insects gone, including an entire colony of cockroaches, over several days. In case the staff uniforms pinned to the wall with large knives weren’t a clue to who the bugnappers were, then the fact that it was all caught on the security cameras made it a little easier to figure out. Police are currently investigating and have recovered some of the little creepy creatures at a residence. They found some bugs there, too. The rest are still unaccounted for – bugs and “buglars.”

According to statements, the haul was only valued at $40,000. Hello! You just committed a felony for a bunch of roaches that a lot of people would have paid you to take out of their apartments. It’s not like they lifted a priceless Rembrandt painting that could be sold on the black market for millions. No, we’re talking lizards, snakes, millipedes.

So maybe you get a job at the Insectarium because you’re just not the brightest firefly in the jar. This means, kids: Stay in School! Stay out of Jail! And, for now, don’t buy undocumented insects.