Bugged
Posted on August 12, 2014 under Storytelling with no comments yet
A surprising find in the freezer
I hopped into the shower, sweating profusely, after a session of lawn mowing in very high humidity. We have “his and hers” bathrooms, one of the luxuries of being empty nesters. My shower is a typical bath/shower ensemble. I routinely throw my towel over the curtain rod to let it dry. These days the results are mixed, as trying to dry anything with the humidex hovering around 40 is next to impossible.
I unfurled the towel, still damp from my last shower, and was about to toss it on the toilet seat when out fell a pair of earwigs. They ended up in the tub at my feet. Luckily I don’t have a strong aversion to creepy things but I must admit that I find earwigs amongst the least attractive of the creator’s creatures. Earwigs must have been standing in the “ugly” lineup when looks were being handed out.
Yes, it is that time of the summer when there is a proliferation of bugs, insects and other creepy-crawlies. Take your pick: red fire ants, black flies, horse flies, mosquitoes, wasps, bees and, one of my favorites, fruit flies.
Long before the “green movement” grabbed a foothold, all of our household waste was thrown together in one bag and taken off to the landfill. I can even remember a time when our garbage man (this was the politically correct name back then) came into our yard with a horse and sleigh in the wintertime.
Nowadays, everything we consume is sorted and compartmentalized. God forbid that a plastic bag get mixed in with solid waste. (I’m watching you – Ed.)
Not all that remarkably, we generate very little waste any more when there are just the two of us at home. But in the summertime, when company reaches its zenith, garbage, recyclables and compost pile up at an amazing rate. This also coincides with the warmest of weather, bringing all of nature’s pests out of the woodwork.
It is now fruit fly season. Most of us compost and you know exactly what I’m talking about when piles of banana peels, potato skins and chicken bones start to percolate in a bucket on the top of your counter. It doesn’t take long before an army of fruit flies descends upon the composter; they hover in masses like teenage girls around Justin Bieber. They are not nearly as gross looking as earwigs but they are a nuisance. Public health officials have gone so far as to suggest that we should be putting our compost in the freezer during the dog days of summer.
I have this vision of a guy arriving home late after an evening of revelry with his buddies. He decides to have a nightcap. He pours himself two fingers of rum with a dash of coke. He reaches into the freezer and grabs what he believes is a bag of ice. He’s not paying real close attention and ends up with a few frozen apple cores and some orange peels floating in his glass.
There will be an inquisition in the morning when his wife spots the glass, empty save for the fruit flies buzzing around the strange debris.
What bugs you?
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