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Bugs are terrifying. Even when you were a kid and collected snails in an old fish tank filled with dirt and plants (what, just me?) they were purely to look at and marvel over, not to – you know – actually touch with your hands.
Except that’s exactly what someone made this poor ball kid do at the Australian Open this week.
![](https://www.pedestrian.tv/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/GettyImages-907104070-1024x602.jpg)
We don’t have much info besides knowing those hands belong to a ball kid who was working on Jan 19th at the Australian Open. Getty doesn’t even know what that bug is. They just called it a “bug”.
I say it’s a cockroach, literally everyone else in the office says it’s a grasshopper.
To that I say – does it fucking MATTER? They’re both terrible bugs. Awful. Bad buggos that are yucky and I never, ever want to touch my skin.
And some poor kid’s scooping that fucker up. Just scooping it’s spindly rough legs into his/her little hands. I could almost cry, this is so traumatic to me.
After a bit of research I’ve learnt this isn’t a new sacrifice ball kids have to make. Here’s a ball girl in slo-mo removing a bug from a court back in 2015.
And then in a Nadal/Chardy match the same year in Cincinnati, a ball kid (well, he’s more of a teenager tbh) absolutely SLAUGHTERED a huge moth.
So I guess it’s part of their job. Just seems spectacularly rude and cruel to force kids to herd bugs off courts with their hands.
Once again, the unsung heroes – the ball kids.