I'd like to say a few words about stink bugs.

There. That's better. You probably heard them from wherever you are. I certainly can't share them in print in a family newspaper.

I don't remember ever having seen the Brown Marmorated Stink Bug before this year. In the past two weeks, I've seen plenty: outside, inside, and in my nightmares.

("Marmorated" is from the Latin meaning "for God's sake, don't open any windows.")

They're native to Asia and seem to have made their way to Allentown, Pa., in packing material in the late '90s. (Thanks, Asia. Remind us to send you some eggs.)

Now they're stinking up the mid-Atlantic, swarming on houses to find ways inside to hibernate through the winter. It's not your imagination. They are trying to get into your house. I'd swear some of them have burglary tools.

My boyfriend, Capt. Caulk (you'll understand that in a minute - unless you have stink bugs, in which case you understand it already), moved into a house in the East End in May. Everything was fine until about two weeks ago, when we started seeing shield-shaped insects the size of frying pans.

We saw one or two, then four or five, and then we couldn't see anymore because they had blotted out the sun.

They swarmed all over the windows - and they started coming indoors.

This is a problem for me, because I would rather be inside the tiger enclosure at the zoo with pockets full of pulled pork than in a bathroom with a bug that looks like its name should end with "-saurus."

But it's not satisfying to kill them because of the trademark stink. When menaced or crushed, they shoot out a puff of pure evil. This is why they have no predators here. Even pigeons aren't that stupid.

Well, I wasn't going to take this lying down. I was going to take it on tiptoe, cringing and yelling, "Sweetie? Can you come in here, and bring a blowtorch?"

I went online to tap the great collected wisdom of entomologists, university agricultural extensions, exterminators and the infested.

Nobody had any good news. The experts glumly lectured that poison is of limited utility and the best thing you can do is epoxy your doors and windows shut, laminate yourself into your home with caulk, foam, silicon, duct tape and Saran Wrap and breathe through your broadband cable.

At least blogs and forums of infested homeowners were more entertaining to read, and these people are not giving up on killing the invaders, no matter how many birds get incinerated or automotive paint jobs are melted.

A typical forum reads something like this:

MTNGRL: I turned on the light in my bedroom and there must have been 50 of them!! I am GROSSED OUT!! Can anything be done??

SIRVIVL: Am working on a zapper. Not a puny store-bought one - something with a stadium light and a transformer. Can't tell you more ... don't want the county to find out.

BECKLEY: I've tried hairspray, kerosene, WD-40 ...

CARL55: Mtngrl, have you tried spraying them with a mixture of hot water and Dawn?

MTNGRL: Does it kill them, or just clean off the kerosene and WD-40?

SIRVIVL: Need parts for zapper, but am now converting gas grill into flamethrower. I HATE THESE BUGS!!

WALDO42: I just let them drop on me from the light fixtures while I'm reading. They're not eating anything. They look like they should be named Chester. All of them.

BECKLEY: They breathe through their bellies. So I opened the window and hit one on the screen with AquaNet Extra Firm Hold. I must have emptied half a can onto that crazy bugger, and it just hung there by one leg, a trail of stink streaming down off him.

SIRVIVL: GAAAAAAAH! DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!

So my boyfriend called an exterminator and spent most of a day off work on a ladder. Seven tubes of caulk and three cans of spray foam later, we stopped seeing them.

We left town.

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