Life as entertainment

I have good news and bad news: the good news is, I have evidence that my chemical perimeter is thwarting pests. The bad news is, I have evidence that my chemical perimeter is thwarting pests.

Last week, we had our first real cold snap. Temperatures dove over night, and the daily highs were in the 30s. If you live in the country, you know that such a thing drives field vermin into your home. In the city, it drives the 6-legged critters into your living spaces. It also tends to stir up whatever vermin you happen to have already established – its something to do with the change in pressure and their ability to detect earthquakes and other natural phenomenon.

I came home from work during these cold days to find an occasional bug dead around the walls I had treated a couple of months ago. Mind you, not many (3 total over two days). Two of these were the big wingless kind, which I know to be transients from downstairs or outside. However, one was the smaller, winged kind. These are the one’s I have been fighting to eliminate after they appear to have started a colony behind my kitchen wall. I have fairly sanitized the kitchen, but there must be a few free-rangers roaming the interior of my home.

Thursday nights are TV nights. [Whose Line, CSI, ER]. In a broader sense, Thursday nights are “stay at home” nights. I use the evening to “reassociate” with my home – from which I am often gone except for sleeping. I clean, do dishes, sort mail, remodel, and sometimes just sit and vedge in front of the tele, usually munching way more than I should.

Last Thursday, I decided to make tuna salad sandwhiches for dinner, while watching Whose Line. For me, the classic routine is squeezing (and drinking) the broth off a can of tuna, flaking it into a paper bowl, then adding a tablespoon or so of Mayo (or Miracle Whip) and pickle relish. Sometimes I add other things – this time it was dill weed and parmesean cheese. Then I grab a loaf of bread, some paper towels, and the bowl of salad, and sit down in front of the TV.

Over the last month or so, I’ve been sorting 3 years worth of mail and filing; my living room floor is an array of paper piles and file boxes. My favorite spot to sit in my house is on the floor with my back to the sofa. Right now, there is a convient buffet just off my left arm – one of the file boxes.

Well, given the good news/bad news I was experiencing this week, I entertained myself while making my dinner by imagining the “stereotypical” scene of setting my salad bowl down and eating a sandwich, only to look back at the bowl and see a bug sitting on the rim. In my mind, I pictured all the appropriate cinematographic angles, good foley, and critical timing to make an amusing little seguay which ended a good evening for both bug and man.

However, I discarded the thought when at last I sat down, arrayed my food and utensils around me, and turned up the volume. (I was careful to “dust off” and examine the file box next to me before using it as a table for my tuna salad!)

So I cackled with laughter when during a commercial I set about making a second sandwich, and saw a winged bug sitting innocently on the rim of my tuna salad bowl.

I moved carefully but quickly, chuckling to myself while I went and got the “point defense” spray. When I returned however, the enemy was gone. I spent the remaineder of the commercial break lifting the box, looking around the area, even lifting the bowl itself and looking at its underside, trying to find where he went. No luck.

So I giggled again when I glanced back at the bowl a minute later and found him again in the exact spot he first appeared. I sprayed him with chemical. He continued to run but knew I’d find his carcuas under the recliner when later I vacummed. True to my earlier musing however, bowl and loaf and all ended up in my kitchen trash. I microwaved Ramen instead, and stirred in a can of chicken.

Somehow, a tuna sandwich had lost its appeal.