Shortly after graduating from college, I got a new job in a new city. I found a new apartment where my new dog Misty and I would start our new life together. It was going to be perfect.

The day after I moved in, I began to itch. So did Misty. The place turned out to be loaded with fleas; fleas that peppered Misty's skin, ravaged my legs, and frolicked on my bed in such quantities that my sheets looked like they were sizzling with black oil.

That summer turned out to have one of the worst flea infestations on record, and it wasn't only my apartment that got so horribly infiltrated. But that was small consolation to me. I was the one paying rent, and I felt violated. Those fleas were good-for-nothing freeloaders.

Why, I wondered, must we share our world with bugs?

If I could have, I would have put on a moon suit and walked the world with a giant bug bomb. I would have erased all the buzzing, bloodsucking, creeping, crawling, and altogether icky pests from the planet.

In retrospect, I recognize that the summer heat--along with the itching--had gone to my head. The truth is, bugs are good.

Sure, there are some summer critters that bring us little joy or benefit. But there are many bugs that benefit us. Without them, in fact, we'd be in big trouble. Therefore, it's worth getting to know which ones we should consider our friends.

It can be hard to tell, I know. Most bugs are small. The smallest is the dwarf beetle, which is a mere hundredth of an inch long. When you're dealing with something that teeny, it's hard to tell whether it's smiling at you or licking its chops.

So how do you tell whether a bug is good or evil?