I’ve been trying to calculate the average size of an insect but have one major problem. Am I classifying the average as being the total of all total insects, or the average across different species? The latter is easy, laughably so in fact, yet the question of the total number of insects and the size of each individual insect is intensely difficult work that all the supercomputers in the world would be unable to calculate.
But let’s just say I might have an answer.
I pull up the Hyundai Sonata in New Orleans. The name of the city conjures up the disaster of Hurricane Katrina and how the government had failed its people, both during and in the subsequent years rebuilding the city. The ruins of homes became prime real estate for billion dollar investors, they could buy up land cheaply, build dogshit on top and charge higher property prices, displacing families that had lived there before slavery was abolished. New Orleans has the worst gentrification statistics in all of the United States. The entire city could be used as evidence, should the United States ever go on trial for racism, but the people living there were working hard to make sure they kept the soul of Orleans alive.
I walk through the city streets. Fourth of July celebrations are happening everywhere, there’s red, white and blue bunting rippling overhead as bars play Independence Day 2 from monitors mounted next to the ceiling. The Saints are playing football against the New Orleans Jesters, a soccer team switching it up to celebrate the successful war of the United States against the British. Although the war of Independence played a significant role in the nations history, arguably the very spirit of America, it was a terrorist insurgence that implemented one of the most violent regimes the world has ever seen. Yet as I walked the streets of New Orleans, I thought to myself: “This is one hell of a city.”
I walk past Hooters, down Veterans Boulevard, surrounded by a surge of patriotism. Tonight there would be fireworks and cheeseburgers. The air smelled of barbecue and weed smoke. I head to the French Quarter, walking past a graveyard and thinking of all the bodies that were lying in the ground, facing up to the stars. Maybe tonight they might have little smile on their lips, thinking to themselves ‘Happy fourth of July! Even though it doesn’t follow the MM/DD/YYYY format us Americans use’. I gave the skeletons a wave and headed to one of New Orleans most famous jazz bars. Unfortunately it had been closed and taken over by a business called Uncle Suck N’ Fuck’s Sloppy Ribs Shack.
I enter the sports bar and greeted with a huge pot of crawfish. They are alive and keep wriggling their legs.
“Welcome to Uncle Suck N’ Fuck’s Sloppy Ribs Shack, do you have a table with us?” asks the maître d’. I shake my head. I hadn’t included crawfish in my calculations. As I stared at the thousands of crawfish in the pot, my mind began to race, I was unable to keep up with my own thoughts. I mumbled something, following the maître d’ as they led me to a table. I accepted the menu with a soft grip, barely conscious of my body. In my calculation of the average size of insect, I had only considered insects that lived on the land. But the insects of the sea had been missed. I felt so foolish. What had been the point in attempting to make such a calculation when making such a fundamental flaw? This wasn’t an error in some complex equation, or even basic arithmetic, I didn’t even have my numbers right! Even an ape could understand that one and one equals two. I had thought I was trying to add one and one together but somehow had replaced one with zero point seven eight six six seven three or some other random number, it didn’t matter. I laughed at my ineptitude. A waiter came over to take my order.
“Sir, may I grab you a- are you okay?” he said. I look up at him and realise I am crying.
“No, no, I’m fine, just feeling really emotional. I love this country so much.” I say, standing up. I look around, people stop their conversation, stop eating, they all look at me.
“Oh say can you see…” I begin singing. The waiter joins me.
“By the dawns early light.” He says, turning and smiling, nodding at me. The bar slowly begins to join in with an amateurish, yet realistic and therefore better, version of the national anthem. When we finally stop I sit back down and order a big bowl of crawfish.
“So we have the Crawfish salad, the gumbo, we can-“
“Just a big bowl of crawfish, boiled, with a little salt.” I say.
“Sir, may I suggest-“
“No. The price doesn’t matter. I want a kilo of crawfish and a Bloody Mary, extra spicy.”
“I’ll go and check with the kitchen.” He says. I nod, take a quarter from my wallet and flip it at him.
“There’s more where that came from.” I say. The waiter leaves, and I drum my fingers on the table, sighing loudly.
Half an hour later my so-called meal is brought to me. They had garnished the bowl with some corn on the cob, but I threw it on the floor, not desiring such frivolity. I begin to eat, cracking and splitting the bodies of the crawfish, drinking the Bloody Mary, snorting keys of ketamine now and then. The atmosphere began to take on an unusual quality. I realised there would be a constant variable of insects that are born and die and so the average number would fluctuate but if I was to add additional numbers to the whole number beyond the decimal place, calculate beyond my requirements and then reduce the reported figure to just two decimal places that would see me right. Any variation could then be accounted as a rounding error, beyond the scope of finding out the average size of an insect. By that stage I had already included the sea insects, then calculated both the average size of all insects, as well as the average size between all species of insect. The margin for error, as exemplified with the big bowl of crawfish I was currently eating, was inconsequential. You may be asking yourself, isn’t the very notion of the average size of an insect inconsequential?
You’re wrong. Let me explain why;
The actual figure representing the size of the average insect population is only useful when trying to work out which is a bigger than average insect, that also happens to be common enough that you might meet it in your day to day life. The answer, after much calculation, referring to leading mathematicians in the field, submitting it to quantum computers, speaking with insect specialists and academics, studying hundreds of books on the subject, is actually quite simple. It’s a moth. So now you may be asking yourself, what does a moth have to do with anything?
Are you saying that you don’t care about one of the great night pollinators? That the value this insect has, not just within the food chain is occupies, but on the black market amongst moth and butterfly collectors is in fact, negligible? Are you trying to sit there and say to me, I don’t understand this, can you leave me alone?
The answer to all those things is to smash enormous clash cymbals right in front of your face and then scream: “You need to start fucking paying attention, alright?”
I finish off the crawfish, leave a pretty generous tip and head out into the night time. Overhead the fireworks were exploding.
