The War Against Bugs

The War Against Bugs

By Rachel Mendell

I know I’ll have to wage war again, but for now I have a small victory.

The war against bugs in my house is ongo­ing: Spi­ders, ants, flies, Asian Bee­tles, yel­low jack­ets, mos­qui­toes. But the most recent bat­tle took an entire week to win.

It started inno­cently enough with a few fruit flies hang­ing around the bananas. Then I found them in the trash bas­ket and I assumed tak­ing out the trash would take care of the prob­lem. It usu­ally does. A lit­tle clean­ing and bleach­ing of table and floor usu­ally does it.

Not this time.

The next day, I threw away a can and a great cloud of fruit flies (drosophila*) arose and sur­rounded me. I sprayed them with Glade, which, I found, doesn’t kill them, but it does make them smell better.

That’s it, I said. This is war.

I drove to the store and bought fog­ger. You know, that stuff that you use before a party that kills every­thing within 100 yards of your bon­fire, includ­ing cats and other small ani­mals – The Fogg of Despair.

Back at the house I erected the Pink Sheet of Death over the mud­room entrance and placed the Trash Cans of Doom behind to keep the smell of the fog­ger out of the kitchen. Of course, that didn’t work, but I felt better.

Next, I san­i­tized the Sink of Hope and Clean­li­ness and washed the Table of Plenty until I had the enemy on the run.

Need­ing to return to my other bat­tle (work), I left a note to my fam­ily: “Con­tinue the Bat­tle My Chil­dren. Keep Dishes Cleaned. Use only the back trash can for food (The Trash Can of Doom). Kill bugs where you find them. Be Strong. Love, Mom.”

Then I posted a sign on the front door for those who had not yet returned home: “Beware! Bug Bat­tle Within.”

“How did they get inside the bread bag?” The chil­dren asked. Even after re-wrapping the bread, they still appeared as if they could mate­ri­al­ize through solid objects. But life must go on, even dur­ing war.

The chil­dren made par­faits while wav­ing the Arms of Peace above the Sweet­ness of Joy­ful Hap­pi­ness. When they found the Great Cloud of Evil ris­ing from the Trash Can of Doom, they changed and dis­posed of the Black Bag of Dark­ness and con­tin­ued the battle.

All food was dou­ble wrapped and placed inside cab­i­nets and refrig­er­a­tors. We had bribed the enemy with the solu­tion of apple cider laced with Dawn Dish­wash­ing Liq­uid, which drowned many, but still they multiplied.

We con­tin­ued the bat­tle, our strength renewed when we found the enemy float­ing belly up in our cof­fee. Dri­ven from their kitchen feed­ing ground they moved in clouds to the bath­room, the hall­way, the bed­room; each time being attacked by the Fam­ily in Frustration.

And now the bat­tle has sub­sided. The enemy has taken to gorilla war­fare and we see them, one or two, on a house­plant, in a drink, on the tele­vi­sion, by the com­puter. We are no longer killing in droves, but one at a time.

I think we won, but I can’t be sure. I was told as a child that all you need is one fruit fly to make a dozen. I know I learned some­thing else in biol­ogy class, but child­hood knowl­edge trumps higher edu­ca­tion in the heat of battle.

I have taken down my signs, but I know I will need them again. The apple trees are pro­duc­ing well this year. That means mak­ing lots of apple­sauce – in the house – on a hot day. And you know what that means.

*drosophila |drəˈsäfələ| noun

A small fruit fly, used exten­sively in genetic research because of its large chro­mo­somes, numer­ous vari­eties, and rapid rate of repro­duc­tion. • Genus Drosophila, fam­ily Drosophil­i­dae: In par­tic­u­lar D. melanogaster.

ORIGIN mod­ern Latin, from Greek drosos ‘dew, mois­ture’ + phi­los ‘loving.’

Posted by Rachel Mendell on Jul 10 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.