Day 25: RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! IT IS THE PLAGUE OF THE TEN THOUSAND PESTILENTIAL PUTRESCENCES!
So, that cockroach/beetle problem? the one I thought I'd sorted by lifting the hob and spraying the swarms to hell and gone? Yeah, not so much. There have been increasing numbers of cockroaches on my counter top over the last week or two, and I have been completely unable to work out where they're coming from.
Today, in the midst of troubleshooting the inevitable glitches occasioned by our remote teaching orientation sites going live, I trundled into the kitchen to make my third (fourth? fifth?) cup of tea (it's been an intense morning), and was somewhat miffed when my spanky blue-glowing glass kettle suddenly died just before reaching boiling point. And in the course of trying to work out what had tripped (the plug, all the plugs, the multiplug, my sanity, the nature of reality), I picked up the kettle base, and about FIFTY MILLION COCKROACHES of assorted sizes ran madly in all directions.
Which is bad, obviously they've been cowering in the warm and eating the wiring, little sods, but what is worse is that I yelped sharply and beat the kettle base on the counter a few times to dislodge them, and about FIFTY MILLION MORE rushed madly into the distance, presumably wailing and rending their garments. And I did it again, and about THIRTY MILLION MORE swarmed out and made tracks, shouting revolutionary slogans about oppressive landlords. And by the fourth or fifth iterations of increasingly wild and frenzied bashing, it was only two million or so tiny black ones who were fleeing, plus a quantity of black dust which I suspect is chewed plastic, but they were STILL COMING! I have clearly disturbed not just a complex and enlightened beetle civilisation with a commendably diverse species profile, but the high-tech research facility in which they have constructed a small pocket universe, because there is no way in hell that many beetles fitted into a kettle base that's only a centimetre thick.
I have now beaten the kettle base into submission, sprayed it in fifteen different positions with evil chemicals, wiped it down, bashed it a few more times for luck (yielding one struggling, poisoned straggler and a quantity of black dust, oh god what if it's Thread spores?), cannibalised an ice cream container lid to make a plastic disc which I have glued firmy onto the underside of the base with contact adhesive so they can't get in, little buggers, got a bit high on glue fumes, reassembled the whole thing, reset all the plug trip switches, and successfully made myself a much-needed cup of tea. I would like a medal now. It should say "PROUD OPPRESSIVE LANDLORD" and show a cockroach, mortant, feet to chief. Also, aargh.
My subject line is, of course, Barry Hughart, who offers the only possible response to seething hordes of clearly evil beetles in a time of plague.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/979235.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
Today, in the midst of troubleshooting the inevitable glitches occasioned by our remote teaching orientation sites going live, I trundled into the kitchen to make my third (fourth? fifth?) cup of tea (it's been an intense morning), and was somewhat miffed when my spanky blue-glowing glass kettle suddenly died just before reaching boiling point. And in the course of trying to work out what had tripped (the plug, all the plugs, the multiplug, my sanity, the nature of reality), I picked up the kettle base, and about FIFTY MILLION COCKROACHES of assorted sizes ran madly in all directions.
Which is bad, obviously they've been cowering in the warm and eating the wiring, little sods, but what is worse is that I yelped sharply and beat the kettle base on the counter a few times to dislodge them, and about FIFTY MILLION MORE rushed madly into the distance, presumably wailing and rending their garments. And I did it again, and about THIRTY MILLION MORE swarmed out and made tracks, shouting revolutionary slogans about oppressive landlords. And by the fourth or fifth iterations of increasingly wild and frenzied bashing, it was only two million or so tiny black ones who were fleeing, plus a quantity of black dust which I suspect is chewed plastic, but they were STILL COMING! I have clearly disturbed not just a complex and enlightened beetle civilisation with a commendably diverse species profile, but the high-tech research facility in which they have constructed a small pocket universe, because there is no way in hell that many beetles fitted into a kettle base that's only a centimetre thick.
I have now beaten the kettle base into submission, sprayed it in fifteen different positions with evil chemicals, wiped it down, bashed it a few more times for luck (yielding one struggling, poisoned straggler and a quantity of black dust, oh god what if it's Thread spores?), cannibalised an ice cream container lid to make a plastic disc which I have glued firmy onto the underside of the base with contact adhesive so they can't get in, little buggers, got a bit high on glue fumes, reassembled the whole thing, reset all the plug trip switches, and successfully made myself a much-needed cup of tea. I would like a medal now. It should say "PROUD OPPRESSIVE LANDLORD" and show a cockroach, mortant, feet to chief. Also, aargh.
My subject line is, of course, Barry Hughart, who offers the only possible response to seething hordes of clearly evil beetles in a time of plague.
This entry was originally posted at https://freckles-and-doubt.dreamwidth.org/979235.html. Please comment there using OpenID.