This Just In: Satan's Preferred Weapon of Choice is the BUG FROM HELL
I don't think I ever churned out that DEMON INSECTS OF AOMORI post last year... I know a lot of people heard about my "issues" last spring and summer, but I don't think I ever sat down and committed it to a blog entry. But hey, Spring has come again, and here I am facing new demons.
For those of you who didn't hear about my adventures last year, here's a recap:
Part I: How it all began
I came home one day last year around...I want to say April-ish, and went through my "I'm home" routine, which typically goes something like this:
a. take off shoes in genkan (small space in front of door for shoe storage)
b. put down bag/remove ipod
c. put on house shoes
d. turn on computer
e. slip into something more comfortable
f. go about dinner-making and web surfacing, etc.
On this particular day, however, my routine was a little changed
a. take off shoes in genkan
b. put down bag/remove ipod
c. put on house shoes
d. go to turn on computer, with small delay to squish an ant running across my tabletop
e. turn on computer
f. squish another ant
g. repeat "f" until it gets through Mel's head that there is an INVASION IN PROGRESS
h. dare to lift up the too-big cover of my couch just beside the table to discover that HOLY SHIT THERE ARE ANTS EVERYWHERE!!!
i. nuke the room with bug spray
j. follow the trail of tiny corpses to distinguish point of entry
k. when trail unexpectedly goes cold, follow soul survivor as he limps back along the unmarked trail to call in reinforcements
l. nuke itty-bitty hole in the closet floorboard, dust with insect-killing powder, cover with duct tape
m. vacuum up corpses littered across the floor
n. repeat a-m three times in following months until the colony is ultimately discovered underneath a rock out back and destroyed with the aid of two special agents flown in to help with containment (a.k.a., two of my elementary school students who live next door)
[As a quick aside: Japanese kids are crazy. They like PLAYING WITH ANTS. Boys and girls alike, which boggles my mind. Boys like bugs, that I get, but these were THIRD GRADE GIRLS assisting me here, and they were following me around the house, picking up the ants we found and letting them RUN UP AND DOWN THEIR ARMS. UGH.]
But anyway, the ant thing was seriously ridiculous. I had issues with them in my living room twice (little wonder, since this is where I eat dinner), once in my kitchen, and finally, once in my bedroom. It was seriously like, the worst experience ever to wake up this way on a Saturday: "Oh, no," I think to myself. "I know it feels like an ant crawling behind my ear, but it can't possibly be that. 'Cause I know God doesn't hate me that much. Surely, it simply a stray hair, or even more likely, my imagination. I'll just go ahead and scratch it anyway to prove to myself that..." *wipes away ant from behind her ear* "...SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!"
I think that was the last time I had problems with the ants. Waking me up on a Saturday by crawling around my ear was definitely crossing the line. Before then, I was actually starting to get used to them. However much I hated them, they were a fairly easy cleanup. Nuke 'em and vacuum, simple as that. BUT LET IT BE KNOW TO THE INSECTOID COMMUNITY THAT TO UPSET MEL'S SLEEP IS AN UNFORGIVABLE SIN, AND IF YOU GO THERE, I WILL END YOU.
Eventually, I managed to acquire pesticides to help take care of this issue before it became too much of a problem. My neighbor helped me apply the stuff around the perimeter of my house (a thick white circle that made it look rather like I might be afraid of witches), and I eventually got myself some ant traps to place in the "hot spots" inside and out.
A final point on Aomori ants: on the back of the box for the traps, there was a little chart showing the high and low season for these little critters. The verdict? High season: MARCH THROUGH OCTOBER. Get that? That means there are FOUR MONTHS out of the year that don't count as the "high season," and basically those are the months when the ants are frozen under the snow. ...I guess that makes it all the more impressive that I managed to get through most of my first year here without running into them. ;P
Part II: How It Got Much, Much Worse
Again, we begin at home. I don't remember what month it was for this one, but I do remember that it was dark outside. I came home to a dark house, turned on the lights, came in to turn on my computer, got as far as reaching for the power button when a dark splotch appears in the corner of my vision.
Now, my walls are all white with brown wooden frames, and I don't have many posters up. The sliding doors are the same color, and I'm one of those people who tends to immediately notice if something is out of place in her familiar territory, especially when there's limited room for an anomaly. So when this unexpected blotch appeared, I was really quite afraid to look, especially because I've been dreading my first encounter with a cockroach up here. They didn't used to have cockroaches in northern Japan, but thanks to global warming *grumblegrumble* the buggers are starting to expand their territory. I ran into a Japanese cockroach down in Osaka once, and let me tell ya: NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE. They are jet black, quite big, they FLY, and they are FAST little bastards.
Long story short: it wasn't a cockroach.
They have poisonous centipedes in Japan. I heard about them from my sumi-e teacher down at Kansai Gaidai, who once got bitten by one in an old Japanese-style house (not entirely unlike mine) and had to rush to the hospital to get the poison sucked out. So when I saw this thing on my wall (I swear, I actually did one of those horror movie slo-mo head turns), I rather freaked out. 1) I didn't know what the hell I was looking at and that story of the deadly centipede immediately jumped to mind, 2) it was quite big (about 2 inches long), and 3) IT LOOKED LIKE AN ALIEN SHRIMP FROM HELL. Seriously. SCARIEST BUG EVER.
Good news is, after I finally tracked down what this thing was on the internet (it's a "house centipede," btw), I discovered that they are not, in fact, poisonous. (Nor are they exclusive to Japan, so watch out North Americans.) Also, they're still probably second to the evil Japanese cockroaches, if only to the fact that they can't fly. *makes Sign of the Cross*
I gassed it with bug spray (little bastard took forever to die), but unfortunately, its whole extended family lives nearby. Where nearby, exactly? UNDER MY BATHTUB. How do I know this? BECAUSE THEY CAME CRAWLING OUT WHILE I WAS TAKING A SHOWER. And my shower shares the floor with the bathtub, so anything that comes out from under the bathtub while I'm showering is effectively CRAWLING TOWARD ME. I was shampooing my hair at the time and had to flush him back under the tub quickly, rinse my hair, and return to gas the underside of the tub. *shiver*
Worst news: They're almost back in season, it seems. I found a baby one on my bathroom wall last night about the length of my thumbnail. Here's hopin' I can wipe all of his siblings before they reach maturity.
Part III: Four Other Quick[er] Bug Stories
1) Spiders. They have GINORMOUS spiders up here in Aomori, and I wish I had a picture of this one I saw at my office. I was talking to my boss one day when this big horsefly got stuck in a web in the window behind him. Almost instantly, this spider that was about the size of a small mouse descended from the window frame above, PICKED THE FLY UP IN ITS MOUTH, and ascended again into its hiding spot. It was one of those awesome moments when I had no Japanese words for my reaction, so I just went "Oh my God!" and ran over to the window. Since "Oh my God" happens to be a favorite English phrase of the Japanese, everyone turned around to look at me. In the ensuing conversation, I learned that the biggest spiders up here aren't poisonous. And then we had this conversation based on what had happened about a week before:
Me: There are some poisonous spiders in Aomori though, right?
Boss: No, no. They're all harmless.
Coworkers: *nod along*
Me: Really? None at all?
Boss: Nope.
Coworkers: *nod along*
Me: *raises eyebrow* What about the black ones with red spots on their abdomens?
Coworkers: *look around nervously*
Boss: Oh, uh, yea. Those are bad, yea.
Me: Yea, I thought so. I found one of them in my house a few days ago.
Supervisor: YOU WHAT?
Boss: Yea, you want to stay away from those.
Me: I figured.
Coworkers: *gulp*
As a follow-up, I'm not sure what kind of spider it was, exactly*, (save that it wasn't a black widow, which is the only black and red spider I can ID with confidence) but I spotted him living in the crack of one of my sliding doors. Since I have a thing about killing spiders (it being their job to keep the ants and centipedes at bay), I scooped him up and dropped him outside. Aaaaaaaaand that was the last I saw of 'im. :)
*Edit: I found it! It's called a "red-spotted ant-mimic spider" (and it's apparently not poisonous after all). Behold!
...and that's totally it, although I don't know what it's doing here, since it's supposed to be indigenous to North America. Maybe it hitched a ride in one of my boxes from home. *shrug*
2) Dango-mushi
"Dango" means something like "ball" and "mushi" means "bug" in Japanese. Therefore, "dango-mushi" means "ball-bug" or "rollie-pollie," as they're more commonly called in the States. They're everywhere over here. Luckily, they're like, the one bug I have no qualms about picking up and flicking out the window, though my students who love playing with ants are afraid of them. *sigh*
3) Stink Bugs
So I was chatting with Erin one night, when halfway through our conversation, this "BZZ...BZZZ...BZ...BZZ!" caught my attention from the kitchen. When I looked up through the doorway, I spotted this rather sizable bug hurling itself against my light fixture. Without my glasses on, I couldn't actually tell what it was, though I took it to be some breed of highly-motivated moth.
Putting Erin on hold, I went to retrieve my glasses (a dash that required my ducking under the swooping path of this dedicated, anonymous insect). When I looked into the kitchen again, I found that it was not, in fact, a moth causing the commotion, but a stink bug. Snatching up the nearest fly swatter (yes, I inherited several upon moving in here) I went into battle and did away with the noisy sucker.
And then the smell came.
This was my first time executing a stink bug inside my house. Typically, they're such stupid, slow little buggers that I just deal with them as I would the dango-mushi. Also, they're kind of cute, in an ugly sort of way, so I tend to take pity on them. But since I had not previously realized that they could fly--a discovery which hastened my wish to be rid of this one, and since I'd never found them to stink before, I guess I just didn't think.
Apparently they only stink if you piss them off. Sort of a...rotting-evergreen-threw-up-on-my-car-freshener kind of stink. I'm just glad it didn't happen in my bedroom, or I'd have been occupied for the next hour or so waving some broad instrument around in an attempt to air the place out (a practice I've not been reduced to since my freshman year at UWF when I managed to start a small fire in my dorm room by setting my toaster oven to SUPER CRSIP and then...forgetting about it while I did the dishes ^^; ).
I've been careful not to sneak up on any stink bugs since then, but I did have another run-in a few days ago when one crept up into my house shoes without my realizing. When I slipped into them as part of my aforementioned routine, I felt the lump under my heel and realized I'd just crushed the poor fellow. Oddest part of that is, although it didn't stink, I now have an orange stain on my foot. Still. Like, five days later. :/
4) Little flies *twitch*
This happened a few weeks ago. I was getting ready to go to bed, finishing up watching some episode of something on my laptop in the near-darkness of my living room, when a little fly whizzed across the screen--not completely uncommon. On its third fly-by, I squished it and flicked it into the garbage can. I remember that I was in an oddly passive mood about the encounter...probably because it was so late. So I go through my bedtime routine, and as I'm heading through the kitchen, I look up and see three more little flies buzzing around the light.
"Hm," I think to myself. "That's odd. I just killed one of those." So I get rid of 'em and head into my bedroom, only to find another two around the light. With the aid of my handy-dandy bug spray can (which is never far this time of year), I take 'em both out. Then I spot another one or two on the walls, and they are similarly dealt with.
But at this point, I'm starting to get a little suspicious. A dozen of these little flies discovered (and disposed of) in the space of like, 2 minutes? That's not normal. And as I am quite sensitive about the presence of insects while I sleep, I decide to investigate a little before heading off to bed. My intuition leads me to the back hallway of my house, where my toilet and shower rooms are. As I move into the hall, I see a few of these same little flies buzzing around the floor.
"Hm," I think again. "That's odd. These kinds of flies don't usually tend to fly around the floor. They're typically more attracted to light fixtur--" *looks up*
As I spot the hundred or so little flies buzzing around the hallway light fixture, my mind clicks into kill mode. I stumble backward out of the hallway and scramble for my bug spray can, returning to the hallway to fill it with gas. Right before bed. Genius. Woke up the next morning with a sore throat. *sigh* Way to poison yourself, Mel. >_<
To this day, I do NOT know how all those little flies got in. They were en force in the sort of way that made me think I'd left a window open, but there were no such open windows throughout the house. And they haven't invaded again since (not that I'm complaining), despite the fact that that hallway light is always on at night. After working through the possible entry routes they could've used, I'm left to assume they're using the Secret Stink Bug Tunnels of Invisibility, so named because I find about one stink bug in my house a week, and I canNOT figure out how they get in. And stink bugs are not particularly flexible bugs--they're big, boxy, clumsy, and stupid. And apparently, for at least one night, they were in league with the flies.
Part IV: How We Came To This Blog Entry Today
So what the hell does all this have to do with anything, and why am I talking about bugs when I've been silent for several months, during which time I've done some pretty blog-worthy fun things? Because as of about 10 minutes prior to my starting this post, I have a new insect to add to my demon list.
I was sitting here in my living room (from where all of these stories seem to spring), minding my own business, watching an episode of La Femme Nikita, when suddenly I hear this faint buzzing coming from the top of my sliding glass door to the outside. I look up and see a REALLY. BIG. black blotch attempting to free itself from the small compartment between the inside and outside glass panes. Now, since the glass is frosted on this side, I couldn't make out anything but the SIZE of this thing. By now, I'm familiar with the sight and sound of a flying stink bug, so I know that this is no stink bug. And Cockroaches don't tend to fly in an attempt to free themselves (indeed, I'm fairly certain they only fly to freak people out), so again, I've avoided that encounter. ...With those two simple eliminations, I decided what I must be up against.
Common name: Japanese giant hornet.
Yes. It's really that big. Really.
Last year, an old couple up in the mountains nearby died by Japanese giant hornet attack, and apparently there are about 40 deaths per year by these guys. The have stingers up to a QUARTER OF AN INCH LONG and a wing span of up to THREE INCHES. I'm pretty sure these guys are the SPAWN OF SATAN. They are FREAKING SCARY.
And they are now at the top of my list.
I managed to do away with this one by way of the superior power of my awesome monkey brain, but...the fact that he was here at all is unsettling. You know these sorts of fellows don't tend to travel alone.
Sooo...now I think I have sufficiently freaked myself out. I'm off to take a (hopefully centipede-free) shower, make dinner, and then hopefully find some way to take my mind off of all of this.
Lata!
~~~~~~~
Book Rec: Susan Kay's Phantom. I think this may be the only book that I manage to completely re-read, cover-to-cover. So. Awesome. If you're a Phantom of the Opera phan, this is a must-read. And even if you're not, it's still awesome. ^_^
For those of you who didn't hear about my adventures last year, here's a recap:
Part I: How it all began
I came home one day last year around...I want to say April-ish, and went through my "I'm home" routine, which typically goes something like this:
a. take off shoes in genkan (small space in front of door for shoe storage)
b. put down bag/remove ipod
c. put on house shoes
d. turn on computer
e. slip into something more comfortable
f. go about dinner-making and web surfacing, etc.
On this particular day, however, my routine was a little changed
a. take off shoes in genkan
b. put down bag/remove ipod
c. put on house shoes
d. go to turn on computer, with small delay to squish an ant running across my tabletop
e. turn on computer
f. squish another ant
g. repeat "f" until it gets through Mel's head that there is an INVASION IN PROGRESS
h. dare to lift up the too-big cover of my couch just beside the table to discover that HOLY SHIT THERE ARE ANTS EVERYWHERE!!!
i. nuke the room with bug spray
j. follow the trail of tiny corpses to distinguish point of entry
k. when trail unexpectedly goes cold, follow soul survivor as he limps back along the unmarked trail to call in reinforcements
l. nuke itty-bitty hole in the closet floorboard, dust with insect-killing powder, cover with duct tape
m. vacuum up corpses littered across the floor
n. repeat a-m three times in following months until the colony is ultimately discovered underneath a rock out back and destroyed with the aid of two special agents flown in to help with containment (a.k.a., two of my elementary school students who live next door)
[As a quick aside: Japanese kids are crazy. They like PLAYING WITH ANTS. Boys and girls alike, which boggles my mind. Boys like bugs, that I get, but these were THIRD GRADE GIRLS assisting me here, and they were following me around the house, picking up the ants we found and letting them RUN UP AND DOWN THEIR ARMS. UGH.]
But anyway, the ant thing was seriously ridiculous. I had issues with them in my living room twice (little wonder, since this is where I eat dinner), once in my kitchen, and finally, once in my bedroom. It was seriously like, the worst experience ever to wake up this way on a Saturday: "Oh, no," I think to myself. "I know it feels like an ant crawling behind my ear, but it can't possibly be that. 'Cause I know God doesn't hate me that much. Surely, it simply a stray hair, or even more likely, my imagination. I'll just go ahead and scratch it anyway to prove to myself that..." *wipes away ant from behind her ear* "...SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!!!!"
I think that was the last time I had problems with the ants. Waking me up on a Saturday by crawling around my ear was definitely crossing the line. Before then, I was actually starting to get used to them. However much I hated them, they were a fairly easy cleanup. Nuke 'em and vacuum, simple as that. BUT LET IT BE KNOW TO THE INSECTOID COMMUNITY THAT TO UPSET MEL'S SLEEP IS AN UNFORGIVABLE SIN, AND IF YOU GO THERE, I WILL END YOU.
Eventually, I managed to acquire pesticides to help take care of this issue before it became too much of a problem. My neighbor helped me apply the stuff around the perimeter of my house (a thick white circle that made it look rather like I might be afraid of witches), and I eventually got myself some ant traps to place in the "hot spots" inside and out.
A final point on Aomori ants: on the back of the box for the traps, there was a little chart showing the high and low season for these little critters. The verdict? High season: MARCH THROUGH OCTOBER. Get that? That means there are FOUR MONTHS out of the year that don't count as the "high season," and basically those are the months when the ants are frozen under the snow. ...I guess that makes it all the more impressive that I managed to get through most of my first year here without running into them. ;P
Part II: How It Got Much, Much Worse
Again, we begin at home. I don't remember what month it was for this one, but I do remember that it was dark outside. I came home to a dark house, turned on the lights, came in to turn on my computer, got as far as reaching for the power button when a dark splotch appears in the corner of my vision.
Now, my walls are all white with brown wooden frames, and I don't have many posters up. The sliding doors are the same color, and I'm one of those people who tends to immediately notice if something is out of place in her familiar territory, especially when there's limited room for an anomaly. So when this unexpected blotch appeared, I was really quite afraid to look, especially because I've been dreading my first encounter with a cockroach up here. They didn't used to have cockroaches in northern Japan, but thanks to global warming *grumblegrumble* the buggers are starting to expand their territory. I ran into a Japanese cockroach down in Osaka once, and let me tell ya: NOT A PLEASANT EXPERIENCE. They are jet black, quite big, they FLY, and they are FAST little bastards.
Long story short: it wasn't a cockroach.
They have poisonous centipedes in Japan. I heard about them from my sumi-e teacher down at Kansai Gaidai, who once got bitten by one in an old Japanese-style house (not entirely unlike mine) and had to rush to the hospital to get the poison sucked out. So when I saw this thing on my wall (I swear, I actually did one of those horror movie slo-mo head turns), I rather freaked out. 1) I didn't know what the hell I was looking at and that story of the deadly centipede immediately jumped to mind, 2) it was quite big (about 2 inches long), and 3) IT LOOKED LIKE AN ALIEN SHRIMP FROM HELL. Seriously. SCARIEST BUG EVER.
Good news is, after I finally tracked down what this thing was on the internet (it's a "house centipede," btw), I discovered that they are not, in fact, poisonous. (Nor are they exclusive to Japan, so watch out North Americans.) Also, they're still probably second to the evil Japanese cockroaches, if only to the fact that they can't fly. *makes Sign of the Cross*
I gassed it with bug spray (little bastard took forever to die), but unfortunately, its whole extended family lives nearby. Where nearby, exactly? UNDER MY BATHTUB. How do I know this? BECAUSE THEY CAME CRAWLING OUT WHILE I WAS TAKING A SHOWER. And my shower shares the floor with the bathtub, so anything that comes out from under the bathtub while I'm showering is effectively CRAWLING TOWARD ME. I was shampooing my hair at the time and had to flush him back under the tub quickly, rinse my hair, and return to gas the underside of the tub. *shiver*
Worst news: They're almost back in season, it seems. I found a baby one on my bathroom wall last night about the length of my thumbnail. Here's hopin' I can wipe all of his siblings before they reach maturity.
Part III: Four Other Quick[er] Bug Stories
1) Spiders. They have GINORMOUS spiders up here in Aomori, and I wish I had a picture of this one I saw at my office. I was talking to my boss one day when this big horsefly got stuck in a web in the window behind him. Almost instantly, this spider that was about the size of a small mouse descended from the window frame above, PICKED THE FLY UP IN ITS MOUTH, and ascended again into its hiding spot. It was one of those awesome moments when I had no Japanese words for my reaction, so I just went "Oh my God!" and ran over to the window. Since "Oh my God" happens to be a favorite English phrase of the Japanese, everyone turned around to look at me. In the ensuing conversation, I learned that the biggest spiders up here aren't poisonous. And then we had this conversation based on what had happened about a week before:
Me: There are some poisonous spiders in Aomori though, right?
Boss: No, no. They're all harmless.
Coworkers: *nod along*
Me: Really? None at all?
Boss: Nope.
Coworkers: *nod along*
Me: *raises eyebrow* What about the black ones with red spots on their abdomens?
Coworkers: *look around nervously*
Boss: Oh, uh, yea. Those are bad, yea.
Me: Yea, I thought so. I found one of them in my house a few days ago.
Supervisor: YOU WHAT?
Boss: Yea, you want to stay away from those.
Me: I figured.
Coworkers: *gulp*
As a follow-up, I'm not sure what kind of spider it was, exactly*, (save that it wasn't a black widow, which is the only black and red spider I can ID with confidence) but I spotted him living in the crack of one of my sliding doors. Since I have a thing about killing spiders (it being their job to keep the ants and centipedes at bay), I scooped him up and dropped him outside. Aaaaaaaaand that was the last I saw of 'im. :)
*Edit: I found it! It's called a "red-spotted ant-mimic spider" (and it's apparently not poisonous after all). Behold!
...and that's totally it, although I don't know what it's doing here, since it's supposed to be indigenous to North America. Maybe it hitched a ride in one of my boxes from home. *shrug*
2) Dango-mushi
"Dango" means something like "ball" and "mushi" means "bug" in Japanese. Therefore, "dango-mushi" means "ball-bug" or "rollie-pollie," as they're more commonly called in the States. They're everywhere over here. Luckily, they're like, the one bug I have no qualms about picking up and flicking out the window, though my students who love playing with ants are afraid of them. *sigh*
3) Stink Bugs
So I was chatting with Erin one night, when halfway through our conversation, this "BZZ...BZZZ...BZ...BZZ!" caught my attention from the kitchen. When I looked up through the doorway, I spotted this rather sizable bug hurling itself against my light fixture. Without my glasses on, I couldn't actually tell what it was, though I took it to be some breed of highly-motivated moth.
Putting Erin on hold, I went to retrieve my glasses (a dash that required my ducking under the swooping path of this dedicated, anonymous insect). When I looked into the kitchen again, I found that it was not, in fact, a moth causing the commotion, but a stink bug. Snatching up the nearest fly swatter (yes, I inherited several upon moving in here) I went into battle and did away with the noisy sucker.
And then the smell came.
This was my first time executing a stink bug inside my house. Typically, they're such stupid, slow little buggers that I just deal with them as I would the dango-mushi. Also, they're kind of cute, in an ugly sort of way, so I tend to take pity on them. But since I had not previously realized that they could fly--a discovery which hastened my wish to be rid of this one, and since I'd never found them to stink before, I guess I just didn't think.
Apparently they only stink if you piss them off. Sort of a...rotting-evergreen-threw-up-on-my-car-freshener kind of stink. I'm just glad it didn't happen in my bedroom, or I'd have been occupied for the next hour or so waving some broad instrument around in an attempt to air the place out (a practice I've not been reduced to since my freshman year at UWF when I managed to start a small fire in my dorm room by setting my toaster oven to SUPER CRSIP and then...forgetting about it while I did the dishes ^^; ).
I've been careful not to sneak up on any stink bugs since then, but I did have another run-in a few days ago when one crept up into my house shoes without my realizing. When I slipped into them as part of my aforementioned routine, I felt the lump under my heel and realized I'd just crushed the poor fellow. Oddest part of that is, although it didn't stink, I now have an orange stain on my foot. Still. Like, five days later. :/
4) Little flies *twitch*
This happened a few weeks ago. I was getting ready to go to bed, finishing up watching some episode of something on my laptop in the near-darkness of my living room, when a little fly whizzed across the screen--not completely uncommon. On its third fly-by, I squished it and flicked it into the garbage can. I remember that I was in an oddly passive mood about the encounter...probably because it was so late. So I go through my bedtime routine, and as I'm heading through the kitchen, I look up and see three more little flies buzzing around the light.
"Hm," I think to myself. "That's odd. I just killed one of those." So I get rid of 'em and head into my bedroom, only to find another two around the light. With the aid of my handy-dandy bug spray can (which is never far this time of year), I take 'em both out. Then I spot another one or two on the walls, and they are similarly dealt with.
But at this point, I'm starting to get a little suspicious. A dozen of these little flies discovered (and disposed of) in the space of like, 2 minutes? That's not normal. And as I am quite sensitive about the presence of insects while I sleep, I decide to investigate a little before heading off to bed. My intuition leads me to the back hallway of my house, where my toilet and shower rooms are. As I move into the hall, I see a few of these same little flies buzzing around the floor.
"Hm," I think again. "That's odd. These kinds of flies don't usually tend to fly around the floor. They're typically more attracted to light fixtur--" *looks up*
As I spot the hundred or so little flies buzzing around the hallway light fixture, my mind clicks into kill mode. I stumble backward out of the hallway and scramble for my bug spray can, returning to the hallway to fill it with gas. Right before bed. Genius. Woke up the next morning with a sore throat. *sigh* Way to poison yourself, Mel. >_<
To this day, I do NOT know how all those little flies got in. They were en force in the sort of way that made me think I'd left a window open, but there were no such open windows throughout the house. And they haven't invaded again since (not that I'm complaining), despite the fact that that hallway light is always on at night. After working through the possible entry routes they could've used, I'm left to assume they're using the Secret Stink Bug Tunnels of Invisibility, so named because I find about one stink bug in my house a week, and I canNOT figure out how they get in. And stink bugs are not particularly flexible bugs--they're big, boxy, clumsy, and stupid. And apparently, for at least one night, they were in league with the flies.
Part IV: How We Came To This Blog Entry Today
So what the hell does all this have to do with anything, and why am I talking about bugs when I've been silent for several months, during which time I've done some pretty blog-worthy fun things? Because as of about 10 minutes prior to my starting this post, I have a new insect to add to my demon list.
I was sitting here in my living room (from where all of these stories seem to spring), minding my own business, watching an episode of La Femme Nikita, when suddenly I hear this faint buzzing coming from the top of my sliding glass door to the outside. I look up and see a REALLY. BIG. black blotch attempting to free itself from the small compartment between the inside and outside glass panes. Now, since the glass is frosted on this side, I couldn't make out anything but the SIZE of this thing. By now, I'm familiar with the sight and sound of a flying stink bug, so I know that this is no stink bug. And Cockroaches don't tend to fly in an attempt to free themselves (indeed, I'm fairly certain they only fly to freak people out), so again, I've avoided that encounter. ...With those two simple eliminations, I decided what I must be up against.
Common name: Japanese giant hornet.
Yes. It's really that big. Really.
Last year, an old couple up in the mountains nearby died by Japanese giant hornet attack, and apparently there are about 40 deaths per year by these guys. The have stingers up to a QUARTER OF AN INCH LONG and a wing span of up to THREE INCHES. I'm pretty sure these guys are the SPAWN OF SATAN. They are FREAKING SCARY.
And they are now at the top of my list.
I managed to do away with this one by way of the superior power of my awesome monkey brain, but...the fact that he was here at all is unsettling. You know these sorts of fellows don't tend to travel alone.
Sooo...now I think I have sufficiently freaked myself out. I'm off to take a (hopefully centipede-free) shower, make dinner, and then hopefully find some way to take my mind off of all of this.
Lata!
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Book Rec: Susan Kay's Phantom. I think this may be the only book that I manage to completely re-read, cover-to-cover. So. Awesome. If you're a Phantom of the Opera phan, this is a must-read. And even if you're not, it's still awesome. ^_^