Bugs and all things that slither and flutter and skitter are not my cup of tea. Especially when I find one floating in a glass of iced tea that I happen to be drinking from. Not sure how long that fly had been floating in there but I caught sight of it just as I put the glass up under my nose. There it was. Kinda all water logged like a piece of hard bread that falls into water and becomes all gooshie and smooshie. Yes that was what the fly looked like that swam its final backstroke in my tea before becoming another summer waterlogged statistic. It ended up circling the drain in the kitchen sink. On the garbage disposal side. No chance of resuscitation there. I consider me the victor in that round of me versus bug. I have that same feeling when I throw a bug in the porcelain throne, uh, the toydee. You know when you see something running across the bathroom floor and you don’t have shoes on so you grab a piece of toilet paper or corner of a tissue. Hey I don’t want to use a whole tissue for one bug. Yes I am that tight. So I grab at it, squish it and throw it in the water of the toydee. When I spot something in the house that should be outside doing all things buggy, it becomes me or the bug. I spray for bugs. Inside and out. Responsibly of course. I have no desire to be found on the floor all curled up like the spiders and such that succumb to the spray I spray to make the bugs skitter off to bug Heaven. But! Yes a bug spraying “but.” Spraying is my defense to all things that might want to live with me without paying rent. So many, if not all of the bugs I dispose of in my home are already dead. There are however, some that are just too tough. Some that have the ability to live through a flush. Do you think spiders I flush consider that trip around the bowl and then down into the inner workings of a toilet is like going to a huge water park? A big question I have thought about, maybe too much, is this. When I flush a live bug down in a swirl of water, does that bug live to come back up and escape up and out of the toilet to “bug” me another day? Not the dead ones. I am not Stephen King for goodness sakes. I am talking about the ones that seem to be swimming as they swirl that last swirl before disappearing in a final ka-whoosh of water. If you have never heard any of the stories about snakes coming up in toilets, or other creatures that can pop up as you sit there, consider yourself forewarned. Or! Or stories of black widow spiders living under the seats in out houses used in the summer by unsuspecting campers. Yikes. Or! Or this one. Spiders wait until you are sitting there in an outhouse just to swing down on a web landing in your hair and make a nest as you sleep all comfy and warm in your sleeping bag. Oh there are more than just your everyday boogie man stories with axes to tell around campfires. Oops I have slithered off the bug trail. To me it isn’t just skittering things. No I am an equal opportunity bug dis-liker. I also don’t like fluttering moths. When I was very young and went into the bathroom one evening I turned on the light and a moth started to flutter and tink-tink against the light. I do not like fluttering things so I turned off the light then cautiously went in to — well you know. As I sat there I remember thinking with the light off the moth would just disappear. Then, my sister came in and flipped the light on and I screamed. HAHA I don’t know who was more scared, me of the moth, her of me, or the moth of two little girls screaming. Memories are in your brain. It’s fun to let them out occasionally. Even the scary ones. Oh, yes, we all have a few scary ones. As I grew up the scary ones got less scary. Not completely un-scary. I sometimes still would rather not turn on the bathroom light. My theory? I can’t see you and you can’t see me. Trina Machacek lives in Eureka. Her book, “They Call Me Weener,” is available on Amazon.com or email her at itybytrina@yahoo.com to find out how to get a signed copy.
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