Written on Monday, April 07, 2008 by Jessica
I walked into the kitchen, and on the ceiling above the sink, was an earwig. It's the first week of April, and there's a freaking earwig in my house. Last year I saw a few baby ones in May but didn't see any others until June. I wonder if this means a whole slew will be hatching from my keyboard any day now.
I'm in a bad mood now.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere
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Written on Tuesday, July 03, 2007 by Jessica
No earwigs. For the moment, I'm safe.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere
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Written on Sunday, July 01, 2007 by Jessica
Last night, I was working on my computer when an earwig materialized on my keyboard. It fell from the ceiling. Do I really need to point out how close it came to falling into my hair? (Yes, I feel the need to point it out.)
When I think of what would've happened next... Earwigs instinctively burrow. Ugh. It gives me the heebie-jeebies to imagine trying to get one of those things out of my hair.
I've been killing a lot of earwigs lately. One was in my purse a couple of weeks ago. But I digress.
So there was the earwig perched on my keyboard, which was actually a good thing. Better on the keyboard than in my hair. I couldn't kill it before it crawled down among the keys and out of reach. I'm half expecting it to crawl out while I'm typing. Heck, there's enough food down in there for it to survive until this fall when it's time to hibernate. Then it can lay eggs and I can look forward to baby earwigs boiling out of the keyboard next spring.
Maybe I'll buy a new keyboard.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere
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Written on Tuesday, January 16, 2007 by Jessica
Thank goodness we're finally getting some actual cold. Thus far, we've had very little snow, and the lakes haven't even frozen yet. (No ice on the lakes in January? Unheard of!) Rumor has it that desperate ice fishermen have been rigging their tip-ups to float and then using a boat to put them out on the water. Not exactly sure how that would work, but I don't ice fish, nor am I an angler in any sense, so I guess I don't really care.
But finally some cold, which is a relief. As many of you know, I hate bugs, and the cold weather now will help keep bugs in check this spring. I've never been so hung up on cold winters before, but I've never lived in such a buggy house before. Not to mention the fact that cold winters were always a given, so I didn't have to worry about warm winters begetting plagues of earwigs.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere,
Our house
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Written on Wednesday, November 08, 2006 by Jessica
I never even mentioned that Baby's Daddy (i.e., Husband) came home on Saturday. He killed a spider for me this morning.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere,
Miscellany
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Written on Thursday, October 12, 2006 by Jessica
It's snowing today. Sigh. I knew the snow was coming, but for some reason I thought it wouldn't be here until tomorrow. I don't have my boots, and I'm wearing ankle socks. And I'm not even sure I have a scraper in my car.
In happier news, snow means fewer bugs. :)
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere
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Written on Tuesday, October 03, 2006 by Jessica
Seth and I stayed at Grandma and Grandpa's last night. It wasn't the original plan, though. Sitting on the couch last night, I noticed spots on the wall. What the heck? I walked over and saw I was infested with ladybugs. Not the real ones, which are unlucky to kill, but some lookalikes that have been infesting houses in the area for the past several years.
I've already discussed my phobia with bugs, especially ones that fly or hop erratically, but the big thing about phobias is that they are irrational. Ladybugs don't bother me. I went to sit back down on the couch when I saw a cricket running across right where I'd been sitting! The horror! Oh, how dearly I hate crickets. How to kill it??
First, I ran to get a glass to trap it, but I simply could not get close enough to trap it. Then I ran for a flyswatter, but when I returned, it was gone. I called my in-laws to ask if they had a minivac, but no such luck. I told her about the cricket. "What am I going to do?? I can't sit on the couch! Not 'til I kill it. But it's gone."
As I was bemoaning the lost cricket, I saw something on the carpet by the loveseat. It looked like some fuzzy lint, but as I approached. "Dear god, it's a stinkbug!" My mother-in-law asked if I wanted to stay there that night. Yes, very much.
I stomped on the stinkbug but couldn't bear to leave the cricket running loose, so pulled the couch away from the wall. Gone. So I gathered up my things and my baby and prepared to run away from the buggy house. That's when I spotted the cricket near the couch. He looked a little smaller, which made me wonder if it was yet another, but I banished the horrific thought, grabbed the flyswatter, and beat on it about ten times. Dead.
I began to consider staying in the house, even though I knew I would dream all night that crickets and stinkbugs were crawling on the baby. (I had similar dreams in the face of the minor earwig population.) But then I looked over, and under the baby's swing, was another cricket. Another beating with the flyswatter, and I was out the door.
I really wish my husband would come back home.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere,
Our house
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Written on Monday, October 02, 2006 by Jessica
One day in tenth grade biology, we had to dissect a giant grasshopper. Thank god it was already dead. I asked the teacher, whose name I can no longer remember, where these hideous creatures came from. North Carolina. That's when I decided I could never live in North Carolina.
Thanks to Ms. Zee and beloved Mr. Hop, I've also crossed Southern California off the list. (Actually, though, it was already off the list due to the San Andreas fault.)
I'm beginning to wonder if I should cross Michigan off the list. My new home, while not exactly infested with earwigs, has its share of the creatures. I hate bugs. I suppose it could be worse. At least I can kill* earwigs. I'm too terrified of grasshoppers and water crickets to get near enough to kill them unless I have a can of WD-40, which works wonders against water crickets. I don't know about grasshoppers, though.
*I can kill most earwigs. I completey mangled one the other day, though, and even though I was sure it was dead, it crawled off when I left the room. Hopefully it crawled off to die.
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Fear and loathing in the blogosphere,
Our house
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