Monday, December 07, 2009

devil bugs

Whew. Thanks for indulging me with that last post.
But in continuing with the theme, if you do not like bugs, stop reading.

What I really wanted to share deal with this status update:






Two quick cockroach stories, and then, back to the grindstone.

A number of Christmases ago, I was so  excited to begin decorating. I went down to our store room to retrieve the cardboard boxes the ornaments and other decorations were stored in.

I brought them all in the house [our store room was separate from the main house] and began to unpack. As I unpacked, I began noticing these strange brown-black things.

Then I noticed that the sourdough ornament had been chewed on.

And that was when I realized that the cardboard box had been infested by those nasty devil bugs.

I stopped decorating for Christmas at this point.

Growing up in Arizona, the winters didn't get cold enough to kill all the lovely bugs, so they would show up from time to time. Once one came out of the loveseat and crawled onto my leg. The worst was right when you were going to step into the shower, and you noticed the huge brown bug staring at you.
*shudder*


Second story.

This one involves a Palmetto bug, spray starch and a mission companion.

It must have been night time, because I know I was in bed. All of a sudden I hear my companion squeal. Then, this thing is flying towards me. I run. Quickly.

I am of no use to her in the battle against the bug. No, no, I had the important role of seeing the whole field so that I could direct the battle.

We did not have the usually bug killing supplies [bug spray, hairspray and matches....] in the apartment yet, as we were the first to live there, so we had to be creative.

The only spray aerosol we had was spray starch, so that had to do.

The spray did nothing really to harm him, but when he eventually landed in the sink, he was so coated with the spray starch, he could not remove himself from the sink.

So, my brave greenie drowned the sucker.

If you want to learn more about the cockroach (a.k.a. devil bug) you may look here.

Let us now all go and do our dishes. :)

1 comment:

Vanessa Swenson said...

Those stories are amazing. The starch story was especially awesome. I think I only ever saw 2 my whole mission.
Thanks for writing about them so that I didn't end up wondering about your FB comments for the rest of my days.