Peace Negotiations and The Bug Problem

A few days ago I walked into my bathroom and stopped short. There clinging to the side of the sink was a bug. Not just any bug but a giant waterbug. A bug trying to grow to the size of a small aircraft carrier.

It was a clearly unworkable situation. I had no intention of sharing my bathroom with something that looked as if it belonged in a Jules Verne story or should have been rampaging across a Hollywood B-Movie set.

After a few minutes consideration, I grabbed a bag and tried to non-violently evict him from my bathroom. Waterbugs though it turns out are quicker than humans and much harder to catch, so off I went to the yellow pages. I began leafing through to Exterminators. But extermination seemed too violent. So I kept on leafing until I reached Political Solutions.

The first number I called was for Ariel Sharon. I thought he was in a coma but as it turned out he had recovered nicely and set up an exterminating business locally. Except he wasn't exterminating anymore.

"What you need is to control the demographics," Ariel Sharon told me, "above all you must insure demographic superiority with the bugs."

For now there was only one bug and one me. But that could change quickly enough. I suspected that the waterbug would be able to find a mate and begin reproducing in much greater numbers than me very quickly.

"So do I drive it out?" I asked the former Prime Minister.

"No, no," Sharon said ruefully. "You can't drive him out but you can partition your apartment so you have demographic superiority in your part of the apartment."

"Wait a minute," I protested, "so I have to give up my bathroom to the waterbugs? And what if they decide to expand beyond the bathroom?"

"You build a wall," Sharon told me.

"Bugs can get through walls," I said.

"We'll deal with that when it comes up," he said.

I hung up unsatisfied and dialed the next number. Former Prime Minister and current President of Israel, Shimon Peres took my call. I quickly sketched out my problem to him.

"You're going about this the wrong way," Shimon Peres assured me, "you need to expand your thinking. The bug is not your enemy. The bug is your neighbor. He can live together with you."

"No he can't," I said firmly.

"You're being narrow-minded," Peres said, "you need to rethink your definition of your apartment. It's his apartment too. Conceive of it as an ecosystem. An ecosystem in which many creatures dwell and from whose diversity you can benefit. From now on you will no longer be defined by species but by a willingness to make peace with all living creatures."

"Look your agenda seems a little to grand for me," I told him, "I just want the giant horrible bug out of my bathroom."

"Don't you understand, you are the bug and the bug is you," Peres wheedled, "once you accept a new concept of your apartment defined not by species borders but by nanotechnology and a revitalized intellectual economy, the way to peace will be open."

I hung up on Peres and dialed the next number on the list. The President of the United States answered.

"See what you've got to do here is find out if he's a moderate or extreme waterbug," George W. Bush said. "Then if he's a moderate, you've got to feed him so he keeps down the extreme waterbugs."

"He's just a bug, I don't think he's got a political agenda," I told the President, "and I just want him out of my bathroom."

"You can't evict him," the President warned me.

"Why in the world not? It's my bathroom," I retorted.

"That's for the world community to decide. Besides you'll outrage all the trillions of other bugs around the world who will start attacking humans and there's more of them than there are of us," President Bush said sternly. "No you've got to realize that the bug is just like you. He wants a job and a better future for his family."

"Look I'm evicting the bug and you've got nothing to say about it" I replied.

"See if you get any money from us then," President Bush retorted.

"I don't get any money from you. I pay you money every year," I said angrily.

"Or F-16 parts either," he said.

"That would trouble me more if I had any F-16's I needed parts for." I hung up on the President and dialed the next number.

"Hello this is Yossi Beilin," the man on the other end said. "I'm already aware of the situation and it's on the way to bring resolved."

"That's great news," I told him. "How are you planning to help me get rid of the bug?"

"I'm not," Yossi Beilin said, "but two minutes ago I met with a representative of the waterbug in Reykjavik and signed a comprehensive series of understandings with him, which we'll call The Reykjavik Accord."

"Wait, wait," I said, "I never authorized you to do that."

"It doesn't matter," Yossi Beilin told me, "the accord is signed. It's too late to do anything about it. This is your last chance to achieve peaceful co-existance with your neighbor."

"I don't want peaceful co-existance with a giant hideous bug," I said. "I want him out."

"If you try to throw him out, I will personally come and lie down in front of the bathroom to block your path," Yossi Beilin warned me.

"I'll just step over you," I said.

"You won't get away with this. You'll be a war criminal," Yossi Beilin shrieked over the phone, "every man's hand will be turned against you."

I gladly hung up on him. Then I took another go at catching the bug but the waterbug may have been huge but he was surprisingly able to fit through narrow cracks and spaces. It quickly became obvious to me that hunting the bug down and trying to hunt him down non-violently was doomed. So I killed him. I bagged his body and threw him away. The political solution had failed but the military solution had succeeded. As of now I am wanted for war crimes in Sweden and three countries in Europe but my bathroom is clean again.