Thursday, May 10, 2007

Love is in the air. Literally.

Angela's post today got me thinking about bugs. Specifically, the giant bumble bees who are doing some sort of creepy bee mating dance outside my kitchen window again this year. (Romantic though I am, I still can't imagine how this sort of act can be anything less than prickly and awful. Perhaps it's all the buzzing, but I wish they'd get a room. )

One day when I was in grad school, I came home to hear THAT DOG barking her little furry head off. I went in to see what the problem was and there, before my barking dog, approximately 1 gazillion lady bugs were SWARMING over my wall. When I'd left that morning, there were no ladybugs. But in two short hours, they'd arrived in record numbers, as if declaring my bedroom headquarters for what appeared to be a nationwide convention. It was like a scene from a horror movie, when some innocent creature I used to think of as cute and lucky reproduced with such mind-blowing fertility as to make make wonder if they might not, in fact, be taking over the world.

Our apartment had never, to that point, been of the buggy variety, so we had nothing in the way of Raid or Off with which to call this party to an end. I tried flailing at the ladies with my biggest clog-like shoe, but to no avail - it was like they magically multiplied faster when I dared disturb their meeting. I'm bigger than those bugs, I told myself. And theoretically, at least, I'm smarter. And that's when the answer came: I grabbed my industrial-size can of Freeze & Shine Superhold Hair Spray, and shellacked those babies to the wall.

Our vacuum cleaner buzzed for two or three days after that, which is why now, I leave those bumble bees alone. I'll let them mate on my porch all afternoon, so long as they go elsewhere to deliver.

9 comments:

Patti said...

Oh. My. God. that you used hairspray has got to be the best bug story, ever! This entry has a funny and ewwww factor, which is hard to come by.

i will never look at lady bugs in the same way.

LEstes65 said...

I had a friend up there in Boston spent the entire summer with lady bugs plastered all over one side of her house. Very odd. Don't know if she had enough hairspray to deal with THAT little shindig.

Allie said...

Reading this does not make me miss summer at all. That's hilarious!

xxxx said...

I sprayed five-year-old cinnamon air freshener all over the ants inside my front door the other day. It kinda worked. Kinda, not really.

L Sass said...

Hairspraying ladybugs to the wall actually sounds like an off-beat art / home dec project. You may just be the next Martha Stewart!

Unknown said...

I love ladybugs and used to try and find them, and make them stay on my arms because I thought they were good luck... but I am convinced that in your situation I would have been less than commodious. (is even a word? something like accomodating?) ...I'd be sprinting for the hairspray or bug spray or ANYTHING that would get rid of them!

Stacy said...

Oh, wow. I've never heard of a lady bug infestation before.

j said...

craziness! hairspray is my weapon of choice when dealing with unwanted creatures. you can stand far enough away but still get them.

Jenny said...

Poor ladybugs! That is a funny story about them swarming your wall