Thursday, June 09, 2005

Bugs

One of the consequences of living in suburbia is that you get all the country bugs. It has nothing to do with how clean you keep your house either. As far at the bugs are concerned your house is just a really interesting tree that may or may not be edible or at least have something edible in it. I’ve pretty much given up on trying to kill and/or evict them by catching them in containers and tossing them out the front door. I just let them starve to death and then vacuum them later. Except for the really BIG ones, those get booted or flushed.

Ants. For some reason the ants really like my dirty underwear. I literally get ants in my pants when I toss them in the hamper. I know it’s my underwear they are after because last night I came home and the hamper was covered in them and the only thing in it was the blue panties I’d worn the previous day. I pondered, “but why party in my dirty panties?” So my logic went something like this… “Ants like sweet things. Sugar is sweet. Candy is made from sugar. Therefore My Ass Smells Like CANDY!!! Yeah!!!” Now testing this theory against past experiences being alone in a room with my own farts, I quickly realized the flaw in my logic. So I reasoned again. “Ants also swarm the decomposing bodies of other hapless insects who die of starvation in our house. Therefore My Ass Smells Like DEATH!!! Damn.” Leave it to ants to make a person feel small.

Spiders. I actually don’t mind spiders. I figure spiders eat most of the other bugs so I pretty much let them live. The exceptions being if they are in the bedroom or the kitchen or if they are bigger than my face. In that case those suckers get captured and evicted. Lately they have taken to hanging out in the shower. I got tired of having to run to the front door wearing nothing but a towel just to toss them outside, so now Itsy Bitsy gets his ass washed down the water spout. But it never fails that in a day or two, a new spider takes its place.

The Country Cousins of Cockroaches. There are certain beetle type bugs that look like the cockroaches and waterbugs we used to get back when I was a kid living in Camden. But they are not cockroaches or waterbugs. I know this because they move too damn slow. Cockroaches and waterbugs have evolved to survive a nuclear holocaust if necessary so the suckers can out run your shoe no problem. These country bugs were basically created to feed elderly birds whose eyesight is failing and who move slowly. There was one in the closet two nights ago. He was weak with exhaustion because he’d gotten his legs caught in the pile of the carpet and couldn’t get loose. That shit would never happen to a cockroach. There was another one about 3 inches long in the bathroom this morning. I caught him in a toilet paper roll (didn’t even have to block the ends of it), dumped him in the bowl and flushed him. A cockroach would never have fallen for that, even if it was sleeping.

Stink Bugs. One of those backwoods cockroach relatives. When they get scared they point their little asses up at you and fart. It’s a defense mechanism. It doesn’t work (except maybe on elderly birds). My nephews like to step on them to release their gaseous fumes.

Rolly Pollys. A stupid little bug that curls up into a ball when it feels threatened. Unfortunately, when danger has passed it usually unrolls and ends up on its back. Then it can’t turn itself back over. It subsequently starves to death in that position and is then eaten by ants on their way to a party in my underwear.

I do love nature.

11 comments:

The Unseen One said...

When I lived in North Carolina, I remember there being these jumping spider things. Basically, they looked like spiders, but had grasshopper back legs. *shudder*

Girl With An Alibi said...

Mormon Crickets and Jumping Spiders would both freak me out. But we also get this long skinny thing with horns called "earwigs" The name alone creeps me out. I just think of that thing somehow getting into my ear while I'm sleeping. I kill them immediately!!!

The Unseen One said...

Earwigs make chutney.

JMS Books LLC said...

just have to say that i saw a show on spiders once? and when you wash them down the drain, they climb up in the u-bend and wait while the water washes past. so the "new" spider you find in the shower a few days later is probably the same one you thought you drowned previously.

oh, and the jumping spiders actually ARE crickets. the crawl space in my house is ... well, crawling in them. i'm in virginia, so they must be a south thing. we call them (ingeniously enough) spider crickets, but someone else i know called them camel crickets, and then one day on the interstate i saw one of those u-haul trucks with the snapshot of america on the side, and damned if it weren't a pic of a camel cricket. i almost ran off the road.

Girl With An Alibi said...

Holy Crap, Salem! I didn't know spiders were that smart. Well I be damned if Itsy Bitsy isn't crawling "up the spout again" after all. More knowledge in those kiddie songs than I thought.

Dex2177 said...

Add some batter and a Honeywell Happy Home Fryer and it sounds like you've got yourself some crunchy good times goin' on!

Girl With An Alibi said...

Me: Eeeewwww!
Bugsy (cat #1): Mmmmm!
Otis (cat #2): UUURRRPPP!

Anonymous said...

I just had a horrifying experience this morning when I woke up and found ants swarming on my dirty underwear as well. I think that is the creepiest most f*ed up thing Ive seen in a while so I did an internet search adn this blog came up.. !? ha! At least Im not crazy.. I litterally almost threw up and since have been totally paranoid I have somethiong wrong with me or I smell horrible.
well, maybe its just biological. when I was a kid, our family dog would always steal us girls underwear from the hamper so maybe its the same kind of thing, stil EWWW!

spunkyduckling said...

Lol. This post was so funny. Wish I could write like this. I can't stand spiders, they bite me! Every opportunity they get. Sometimes I am rudely waken by pain from the fangs of the green ones at other times i get up from sleep and see the two little bites. And here you are rushing to save their lives..man I kill the darn things.

spunkyduckling said...

Lol. This post was so funny. Wish I could write like this. I can't stand spiders, they bite me!

Every opportunity they get. Once they bit my mother too. Sometimes I am rudely waken by pain from the fangs of the green ones at other times I get up from sleep and see the two little bites.

And here you are rushing to save their lives..man I kill the darn things. Lately they have been popping up ever so often

cialis said...

Hello, I do not agree with the previous commentator - not so simple