Some stories are best left untold. But time and again, this one has knocked on
my door, begging to be written. True to
form, I ask my self, ‘Is there a moral here?’ As far as I’m concerned, if there is no
moral, point, or plot, it’s not worth telling.
But there is a moral. There is a point.
But I’m not so sure there is a plot!
It was late last summer, 2011 on a
warm, sultry, southern night. Arriving home late from the beach, we pulled in the driveway
and, as usual, I stopped to observe the full moon hovering over the Live Oaks
and drink in the smell of Sweet Ginger flowers that permeated the air. I
thanked God – as I had done hundreds of times over the previous three years –
that I am in the south, particularly Mobile.
A twinge of guilt lingered in the
back of my mind because I was too tired to give a longer audience to a
perfectly beautiful night. But the
no-see’ems won out. As discussed in my
post, ‘The Bugs of Mobile’, in order to truly enjoy the south, you
must make peace with the bugs. I had done a great job! It’s not uncommon to find one or two palmetto
bugs in your house in the morning, always lying upside down as though they just
flip over at sunrise. But like anything, there must be a balance.
I turned on the living room light
and saw a palmetto bug – some call them roaches though they’re not even
related. As usual, I found the nearest
shoe that is not mine and killed it. I
went to grab a napkin and turned on the kitchen light. On the wall was another one so I killed that
one too, grabbed the napkin, picked it up and headed toward the living room to
pick up the last one. But there was
another one so I killed that one too.
That was the first time I had ever seen more than two in a day. Many times, we don’t see any.
I went to put the three gigantic bugs
in the garbage. In the dining room was
another one. At that point, I yelled
into Les, who was ready to crawl into bed, “Something’s not right here!” True to form, as most men do, he basically patted me on the head telling me I was
overreacting. Then there was another one
so I made him get that one. Then another in the kitchen, three more in
the ‘pod’ – a big room in the middle of
the house that does nothing – and four in the bathroom. At that point, I was not only frustrated with
the bugs, but also at Les for minimizing it.
Then I realized that in every direction was two or three more. Les
was now concerned! It was starting to
look like the night of the living dead with an attack of gigantic zombie bugs
infiltrating the house.
We were renting and I knew that
Barry our Biologist (and landlord), like Les, would never believe this – so I went to the garbage, pulled the previous
20 bugs out and put them in a baggie. Twenty
bugs!!! NOT!!! The bugs continued to materialize out of nowhere! The more that came out, the more frantic I became because Chicken Liver Les would
be quite content to leave me fighting the battle and I was afraid of not catching them before they spread to
our bedroom or found hiding places. It became
evident that drastic action must be
taken! We were just going to have our
very own, old fashioned, bug-stompin!
I put on a pair of sneakers and ran
around stomping them, grabbing them off the walls with napkins, swatting them
with fly flappers, anything to keep them from getting away. Les became frantic, asking me what the hell I was doing, to which I
replied angrily, ‘Having a bug stompin
party!’ I continued bagging them and
was up to 65 when we got the brilliant idea use flea bombs. We were de-fleaing the dogs the next day and bombing
the house to prevent reinfection.
We bombed every room except our bedroom and locked ourselves in for the
night. At least we would be safe in
there! The bugs thought so too!
About twenty minutes later, Les was
sleeping and my adrenalin was still up so I was reading. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw a bug
running up my closet door. Les assured
me there was only one. As I stood up, I saw three more following
their buddy up the wall. Again, I went on a killing rampage while Les
pulled the blankets over his head laughing.
We saw no more that night but in the morning, it looked like a bomb had
gone off! Hmm! One did! There were over 100 more. I bagged every
one of them and told Les to take them to our Biologist so he would believe
it! But Les felt that was over doing
it. I had called and told Barry what
happened. Les ran into him outside and
he smirked and said, “Were there really
that many?” Les replied, “There was a lot! I quit counting at 30!”
He came in to assure me he supported
my story and shared the dialogue. “Thirty!?!?!
Why did you tell him 30 !?!? Now
he will never believe it!” I was
furious but Les swore that by saying he stopped
counting at 30 Barry got the message.
That day Les went sailing and I re-bombed the whole house and went away
for five hours, then came back and bleached the house from top to bottom. We only saw about three bugs the whole rest
of the time we lived there. However, I
was petrified it would happen again. I
was telling my sister what happened when she said, “Something had to have changed for them to come in like that!” I realized we had had a storm a few days
before and there was damage to our laundry room wall AND a large live-oak
branch fell in the back yard, apparently their home! They decided that our house would be quite
adequate. We removed the branch and did
wall repair.
About a week later I got a text from
Georgia, our biologist’s girlfriend that said, “We had the night of the living dead last night! Now Barry believes you!” Apparently, since our house was no longer hospitable,
they moved on to Barry’s. (Karma! J) They warned us they were bombing and advised
us to do a second round and warned other neighbors as they are prone to keep going
until they find a new home!
The moral of the story is, much of drama
in life is not about what happens but how we react to it. On the night of the living dead, we were just
starting to catch up financially but were not over the hump. We nearly went to a hotel for a couple of
nights stretching our already tight budget, and fought the knee-jerk reaction to
call the landlord and throw a fit, causing a good relationship to sour. Sometimes we get hit with too many bad
things at once and the tendency is to overreact and tap out our resources
(emotionally, financially, relationally, and physically). Minor hiccups turn into huge, blown-out-of-proportion
monsters where lives, relationships, reputations, health, and finances are
damaged – sometimes beyond repair. When
we are seized by an onslaught of bad luck, sometimes all we can do is have an
old fashioned bug stompin’, squashing one problem at a time until the barrage slows
down enough to clean up the mess and reassess. But the reality is, if the worse thing that
happens today is an invasion of big, zombie palmetto bugs, then life is
good! Real good!
