OBSERVATIONS
ReNew Raleigh
mesothelioma lawyers
Mental Illness Makes Me Ill
War Is Peace?
StringCans Is Dead
Organic / Local Thanksgiving
Vegetarianism Rant
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
Those Miserable Bastards Are Ruining Organics
GOLDEN CANS
ReNew Raleigh
Organic / Local Thanksgiving
The Secrets of Mangling Metaphors in an Off-Year
Rockers Unite Over Pirate Vs. Ninja: But what do they know?
HOW A LAW BECOME$ A BILL: We done got us an education lottery, y’all!
Misspelling.com: Capitalizing on Others’ Stupidity.
Let the Boy Be Your Dog: Furry Weekend Atlanta Gets a Bone
The Landscaping Tales - Episode One: Shit Happens
Throw Off the Chains (Restaurants, That Is)
The Moldy Peaches and Toothpaste For Dinner: Cool Collides
Termites, Earwigs and Other Shit
Lately I’ve had a serious bout of writer’s constipation. It’s sort of like my head is my ass; the shit’s in there wanting to come out, but there’s a blockage. Maybe this blockage is just the cheese of laziness or the flank steak of high standards. Regardless, I think I’ve found a solution: Stream of thought diarrhea.
I used to love to write whatever thought came to mind. It was fast, liquid, easy to pass and smelled of rushed accomplishment. So, to get things rolling again in a productive direction, pass the laxative and leave the room if you have a weak stomach.
My house makes noises. Right now I’m sitting in my office (I call it my office because it’s not the room I sleep, eat or apply deodorant in, plus there are pencils in here – thus, office) and I hear scratching at my window. I get up to check it out, but there’s nothing there, that I can see anyhow. It’s the kind of thing that might make you clinch your ass a little if you’ve spent the evening reading too much Poe. But, if you’ve spent your evening reading Poe, you probably have bigger problems. Go wash out the black dye and please invest in some pastel colored clothes. You’re not that deep.
So this scratching – I tap back at the scratch, put my ear to the hatch and finally figure that it’s coming not from the hatch, but the sill near the latch. It is: Termites.
My house must be invested with them. I of course meant to use the word “infested” just then, but for some reason I typoed “invested,” and it seems to suit the sentence just as well. So I left it. Lately this has been my mantra. “Just let it stay.” The dishes stay in the sink. The clothes stay on the floor. The urine stays in the toilet. The dog stays on the couch. I stay on the couch.
Strangely enough, this new philosophy ties directly into my termite problem. It all started with insects. Allow me to explain.
My house has, one by one, been invested with nearly every species of insect. First came the afore mentioned bees, or yellow-jackets as I was later corrected. To me “bee” and “yellow-jacket” are interchangeable, as they both fall squarely into the category of nasty shits that sting and fly. Why nit-pick? Anyway, as an experiment in tolerance, I accepted the bees into my house and lived with them pretty amicably.
The bees were shortly followed by the ladybugs. Hundreds of them. A biblical plague. “If I showed bees, a breed of insect that frankly piss me off, such hospitality, how can I be any less welcoming to ladybugs?” I pondered. I could not. Plus they have a positive aesthetic quality and I have always enjoyed the Rodney Dangerfield movie bearing their name.
Lately, the ladybugs have all but gone the way of the bees, slowly dwindling in number, expiring inside light fixtures and on window ledges in insect mass graves.
The next investation was slightly more disturbing. I was hanging out with my boy Andy, when he pointed out a insect scurrying across my coffee table. “You’re going to want to kill that,” he advised.
The insect, about the size of a large ant or small beetle, had a menacing set of pincers on its ass and looked overall malicious. “That’s an earwig,” Andy informed. “What it does is it gets inside your ear when you’re asleep and latches on with those pincers and then it just stays there. You won’t even know it’s there until you put something in your ear and notice it.”
My immediate thought was: That’s no problem. As a rule I put things in my ears several times daily. But, judging from the sinister look of this insect and my love of my ear canals (not to mention my aversion to having eggs laid in them) I decided this was one insect I could not abide. I squashed it. Since then I’ve killed several more in my shower. And sink.
Since then I did some research. Turns out earwigs are an import from Europe. They were one of the uninvited cargos of triangle trade. Earwigs and cobble-stone: The “What-the-fucks” of colonial shipping. They are rare inside houses and only live in very wet spaces, specifically those with a lot of mold. They are the catfish of the insect world – bottom feeders, eating detritus and other insects. They’re good in that way. And the whole ear thing – that’s a wives tale. They are no more likely to take up residence in one’s ear than say, oh, a ladybug.
I should have stuck to my guns and let the earwigs stay. I mean, the mantra is proving to have merit. My stress level has fallen dramatically, while stock in simplicity has shot through the roof. The idea of letting things that don’t matter slide is one I’m totally feeling right now. I don’t mean to say I’m becoming slack. I’m streamlining. There’s a difference.
So now it’s termites. They’ve probably been here since long before the others. Probably since before me. Sounds like an army of them in there. I can’t blame them; my house is nearly all pine. Pine – Is – Delicious! But I’m going to let these guys live too. After finding out that I horribly misjudged the earwigs and dispatched them from this world unduly, I feel obliged to let the termite investation slowly gnaw at my house.
Anyway, it’s not really my house. I rent. And I realize that renting is a bum deal. In the end, when I move out in about a month I’ll have nothing to show for all my spent money. (Except for my collection of dead bees.) But, at least I’ll go forth with the knowledge that I’m leaving my landlord a half eaten house.
Hence my investment in infestment. The way I see it, the termites and I are playing a little joke on the future. Speaking of “jokes on the future,” expect more on this topic in a day or so – now that I seem to be regular again with my writing. And hopefully, that story will come out a little more solid, depending on what I eat. (Wow, I saw that metaphor through to the end. Gross.)
