11/17/03
I don't know how many of you have bug-bombed your entire house before, but the results are quite fascinating. My first real self-fumigation occured at the Purple House in '92 or so, when I bombed the upstairs, only to find out that a squadron of bugs descended on the downstairs like rats leaving a ship. Matt and Clay were furious, as their ceilings started to move.
Having learned my lesson, Scott Bullock and I went into the basement of the Pink House about four years later to find a flea infestation that was rivaled only by rowhouses along the River Thames during the Black Death. We sealed the house, bombed every room, and dragged Jiffer to go see the Disney "Pocahontas" flick while the place detoxed.
I am now a "homeowner" of sorts, and after getting an awful spider bite last week, I decided to seek my wrath against the various entomological varmints of Columbia County, New York. I set twelve bug bombs off around the house, then sat out in my car, like a nervous mother awaiting her child's appendectomy. I couldn't stand it any longer, and drove to Hudson to sneak into a local movieplex and catch the last heartwarming, heartstring-tugging minutes of "Radio." Side note: did you know that Ed Harris was once my babysitter? His father managed my dad's orchestra in Iowa. We played football with the Harris boys when I was barely old enough to carry the ball. How's THAT for name-dropping?
Anyway, when I got back to the house, it was the insect equivalent of that dolly shot in "Gone With the Wind" when they pan over the Civil War wounded and dead. There were bugs on the floor that I have never seen, not even in textbooks. Thousands of ladybugs sputtered on the tile. In short, I think I murdered 45,000 of God's creatures last night, just so I don't get bit by another spider.
I was feeling a little guilty, I mean, I kinda like ladybugs. And then, in the shower tonight, I was lathering up, opened my eyes, and one little baby spider was hanging from a thread, right in the shower with me. We exchanged pleasantries, agreed on a truce, and she went back up into the ceiling.
Sometimes I get the feeling these blogs sound like I wrote them on an island, put them in a bottle and threw them to sea.
Posted by irw at November 17, 2003 11:45 PM
And here you gave all of us the impression that you'd be sitting on an Adirondack chair doing nothing. I just wanted to write in and say thanks for going away so I could escort Tessa to The Moth event. You are indeed the luckiest bastard I know!
Everything good happens on October 23rd!
I, too, once (actually more than once) bombed the Purple House. In the late summer of '91, when Chuck Pierce, Annis and I went to Chattanooga for a week. They went on to Nashville and I returned alone to the empty Purple House to be nearly eaten alive (unfortunately, I'm being literal) by the fleas that had been left behind to starve by Chuck and Annis's dog, Hayley. Boy, were they hungry: when I entered the house, I was swarmed by so many fleas that my legs turned black. I ran to the Lodge, cleaned off the fleas, and returned the next day with several flea bombs. I couldn't stay in the house for a week. I believe you and Salem were living upstairs and Pete Corson was living in the other downstairs apartment.