Strongly Worded

Just Call Me Ishmael

So there was a black fly buzzing and swooping in my apartment for three nights. A big black bastard making enraging noises and flying crazily across my path. I chased and swatted that fucker for ages. At each failed attempt, I'd console myself with the thought that it would die soon anyway; bugs only live a few days. I snuck into my bedroom each night and slammed the door, trying to ban the whining whizzing fly from the boudoir. And then --moments after turning in--I'd hear it zooming around overhead.

This insect raised my hackles and activated every territorial, primordial atom in my being. Each time the bug escaped my lethal grasp, Arnold Swarznegger lines came, unbidden, into my mind, followed by a frustrated chuckle and the phrase "I'll get you next time", as uttered by Inspector Gadget's nemesis, Dr. Claw.

I looked up home bug-killing remedies. Apparently, bugs like alcohol, and if you leave a glass of wine out for them, they'll drink it, become intoxicated, fall into the glass, and die drunken drowning deaths. I didn't have any wine, so I mixed orange juice and rubbing alcohol, and left it on the counter, expecting death and destruction. Nothing happened.

I sprayed Raid all over the place. I sprayed Raid directly at the bug, and consequently all over my own body and my possessions. Come evening, as I was stepping into the shower, prepared to remove the dangerous chemicals from my skin, I heard the familiar whine, and I got in the right place at the right time with the toilet plunger.

I raised the plunger and summoned the gracious words of Melville: "from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee."

My friends, I took out Moby Bug. It took a bunch of swipes; he didn't go down without a fight. But I prevailed, and I took a scary amount of satisfaction from my triumph.

Posted by Dori at 1:38 PM