The Bugs and I
I am a strong independent woman with one weakness that breaks me into a sniffling whining cowering mouse. I am terrified of bugs – any kind of bug – spiders, earwigs, silverfish, ants, flies, bees – flying or crawling. I just lose it!
I have to say that I am better than I used to be, but that isn’t saying much. I talk myself through the bug situation. “OK Jill – You are bigger than the bug. Deal with it.” I grab a tissue or a paper towel and attack the poor creature. I feel a lot braver as I see it’s pieces being flushed down the toilet, but the creepy, crawly, itchy feeling takes a lot longer to leave my body.
Sunday I had been working in the garden and around the house much of the day. About 8:30 PM I went into my bedroom to undress for my bath. I have whitewashed Pergo floors in my room, but as I entered the room I noticed parts of the floor were black. I looked closer and screamed. My hands began to shake as I forced myself to look more closely. Covering the floor were dots of larva and tiny, tiny flies. They each were the size of a pinhead, but there were so many of them that they changed the color of the floor to black. I shrieked to myself since I was the only one in the house except for the dogs and these creatures -“what are these things and how did they get in MY house and how can I get rid of them?”
I ran downstairs and grabbed a Von’s grocery bag and a roll of paper towels. I tore off square at a time from the towel roll and dampened each piece of towel. On my hands and knees I went over the entire floor until every last pinhead of black organic matter that had previously been on my floor was now in the grocery sack. I had used an entire roll of paper towels. I tied the bag up tightly and ran downstairs with tears running down my face and out to the garage where I threw the bag into the large trash bin. I took a can of ant spray and grabbed another roll of towels and sprayed the towel and wiped around the woodwork where the bugs appeared to be crawling from. Then I took a deep breath and began to itch. I scratched my arms and legs and began to pull at my hair. I’m sure the bugs had burrowed down to my scalp and through my skin.
I lay in bed that night afraid to sleep. I’d carefully open one eye and glance at the floor to see if they had returned and close my eyes again. By morning I was a wreck. I called the pest control guy, but he couldn’t come that day. I didn’t want to come home that night. I walked into my bedroom and again the floor was black, although this time they were moving more and more of them had wings.
I followed the same procedure as the night before replacing the ant spray with a spray bottle of Windex. I had another sleepless night while envisioning a black mist of flying bugs surrounding me in bed with my eyes squeezed tightly for fear of what I might see if I opened them. In the morning the floor was still clean except for a few stragglers, but by the time I came back upstairs after breakfast, the invasion had returned. I was on my hands and knees using my last roll of paper towels when the doorbell rang. Gene from the pest control company had arrived to rescue me. Although he saw these bugs, he had no idea where they came from. He sprayed around the woodwork in the entire house while trying to reassure me that “the bug situation” was over. I went to work, not feeling particularly reassured and still afraid to enter my bedroom when I came home that night. I walked into my bedroom that night and out came a sigh of relief. Although there were still a few of these creatures on the floor, they were dead. I thought I would finally be able to sleep, but again the fear arose in me. I saw the angry bugs swarming up from the floor and surrounding my bed. I saw the bed shaking on the floor. I saw my face covered in black. I screamed and woke up to two startled dogs and a clean bedroom.
I’ll be OK because I am a strong woman and I can deal with anything. Just ask the bugs if you can find any of them – but not in MY house.
