Friday, July 18, 2008

Pestilence

So I am back to battling the Horseman of Pestilence. As alert readers will remember, I have been wrestling with God about this situation lately. Is my fitness, as demonstrated by my ability to use the information I read on the CSU extension website to defeat my enemy, moral? Am I justified in murdering moths and their larvae because that is the natural order of things?

This weekend at a family gathering, my brother and sister in law were talking about their mouse problem. They had mice last summer under their deck. They didn't do anything about the mice because, as they said, they thought they were "cute." Now that the mice have entered their home, B and S.I.L. don't think they are cute any more. They are, in fact, rather distressing. My brother put it this way: "They're not cute. Now when I set the traps I look forward to seeing their little backs broken."

Dear brother, I have felt the same way. Years ago in my married house, there were mice. They were everywhere. They ate the dog's food, they built a nest under the refrigerator. They darted out from dark corners when I was least expecting them. I was at my wit's end. But we had to live, and to do that, they couldn't live. We called in an exterminator.

Other "pests" have provoked reactions from me that are simply mammalian. At the same married house, there was a cactus in the garden. The puppy went out in the night and stepped on the cactus. We pulled the stickers from his paws. The next day I went out with rose gloves and pruning shears and cut the cactus to bits. Don't mess with my babies.

Recently, I came home to find wasps building a next just outside our front door. One came into the house. I panicked. I implored J to do something. He leaped to my rescue, smashed the inside wasp, then, using the only weapon he could find, sprayed WD40 on the nest.

Similarly, I do not feel sentimental about roaches. We don't have roaches, but occasionally I see a beetle that I've never seen before and imagine that we do.

So, here I am again, devising ways to conquer the moths. I am not sure what I am doing is right, I am only sure that it is animal.

1 comment:

Herm said...

I feel your pain, Jenni.

I have shared my living space with a variety of tiny creatures. Carpet beetles and paper moths come to mind. There is recent talk from my upstairs neighbor about bed bugs. Ugly, bloodsucking bedbugs, for goodness sake!

When I heard about the bedbug sightings upstairs, I realized that there have been bugs I've been tolerating for years. I immediately went to the internet to prove to myself and my landlord that what I have seen, in the spring, mostly, have not been bed bugs. The internet confirmed it. I have been tolerating carpet beetles.

The most horrific visitors I have dealt with were house centipedes. I lived briefly in a house with my brother, a house infested with house centipedes. I still utterly despise these creatures, and shower gallons of boiling water down on their heads and on the drains they have been lurking around. And this is upon seeing only one of the little monsters.

I will blog on the subject sometime.

Good luck in your survival efforts!