Life—all life—is precious. I’ve treasured this truth steadily more over the years. It’s taken me from my aggressive youth of smashing countless caterpillars upon an oak trunk, or waylaying helpless fireflies into gold dust with a tennis racket, to my enlightened (perhaps) adulthood of trapping bugs and taking them outside.

I’d like to think my high-falutin philosophy of life held true for all creatures. For if it didn’t, I’d invite the risk of being labeled a hypocrite—nay, worse, a ruthless Darwinian who picked and chose my victims based on their size and value to me.

And therein lies the rub, for not all bugs are created equal. Some are worthy of our greatest efforts of salvation, while some I’m content to damn to the deepest depths of my toilet bowl.

With that I permit myself to determine the destinies of these invertebrates like Caesar in the Colosseum with an outstretched arm and wavering thumb.

Live and let live

Ladybugs

Good golly if you kill one of these you have no soul. What is it about polka dots and teeny legs that transforms insect repulsion into grins and giggles? A litmus test for hexapod hanging is if the bug has a costume for babies, you shouldn’t kill it.

Crickets

They’re hoppers, not crawlers. Does that not add to the no-kill quotient? And it’s hard to think of this critter without a monocle and cane telling a boy that a dream is a wish his heart makes. How can you squash a dream weaver? You can’t, though they do make excellent fishing bait. Still, have fun catching it with the kids and taking it safely outdoors.

Butterflies

How did a butterfly get into your house anyway? Rejoice and just let that sucker enjoy the space, cuz who doesn’t love to watch its beautiful fluttering? Who can’t help but pause and wonder at its motions? Dogs, that’s who. Trap the monarch and release before nature clashes.

Use your best judgment

Spiders

Some of us respond to a spider in our house as if it’s a KGB operative. It snuck in from some crevice unannounced and is three seconds from killing us. We forget in these moments we’re roughly 76 times a spider’s size. If their eight eyes can see anything, they’re convinced they’re done for and would love nothing more than to exit back through the crevice. Most spiders can be gathered in a tissue ball and dropped outside. Unless it’s really hairy, fast, or looks like it dropped into your crib from the Amazon rainforest. Then you should find your biggest boot and pound it before it crawls onto your face and you eat it while sleeping. (Hey, “they” say that happens eight times in your life, so just know I’m not being provocative here.)

Seek and destroy

Woolly boogers

There’s not really a better name for those hairy fellas with 36 legs that scoot across your living room floor. Just like you’d handle any booger, that thing belongs in a tissue and a toilet, pronto.

Cockroaches

They’ve survived natural disasters, nuclear wars, and ages where other species were entirely annihilated. Somehow they’re designed not to die. Yet the sight of one fills us with such murderous rampage, we have to check if we care for living things at all. But then we justify that a cockroach isn’t really a living thing. It’s a filthy, brown-armored terrorist tank that will require the heaviest tome in the room to exterminate. Usually that won’t even do the job. We stomp the book over and over, jar it around to squish every angle, yet inexplicably and inevitably that sucker’s legs are still twitching like it’s training to scale a landfill. Even as you flush its carcass down the toilet, it’s in fact not a carcass but seemingly a slightly handicapped invertebrate swirling to its next adventure. All said I’d bet even the kindest entomologist would be keen to send this dastardly critter to an eternal abyss. So should you.

Mosquitoes

There’s no bug on the planet that makes life so miserable. Not only are they annoying blood suckers, they kill more people than any other animal. Murderous menaces. Is there any animal on earth we’re so immediately ready to kill with zero conscience? We feel its bite and simultaneously smash it to pieces. As soon as we realize it exists we end its life violently. Its parting gift to us is at best an itchy bump and at worst a life-threatening disease. Its contribution to civilization is death for itself and others. When you piece it all together, mosquitoes are pretty much Satan’s demons and must be dealt with mercilessly. That’s why they hold the dubious top spot of the bug most worthy of death.

Well, now you know what happens to bugs in my home. So what happens to bugs in yours?