| THIS IS A READ-ONLY ARCHIVE FROM THE SORABJI.COM MESSAGE BOARDS (1995-2016). |
|---|
of wasps in my apartment. i couldn't imagine how they'd gotten in; i hadn't noticed any nests around nor had i been keeping the doors open for long periods of time. today (sunday) i decided to do some cleaning. i opened my front and back door to air the place out. the next time i looked at my front door, i noticed all the wasps. there were 5 or 6 of them on the door and a couple flying in and out of the room. i looked up at the overhang over my front door, and saw it: a big-ass paper wasp nest the size of half a grapefruit. years ago, i had a real wasp problem. i would roll out my back door in the morning to find a find a nest, like a flower fashioned out of a paper bag, attached to the door. but i hadn't seen them for a while. now, apparently, an entire family had hatched and lived on my front door. i don't have wasp spray handy. but i have vinegar, good old white vinegar. i have solved both my ant and roach problems with it, why not wasps? i filled a squeeze bottle with all the vinegar i had. then i had to top it off with pickle juice so i had enough squeeze pressure for distance. (i'm low to the ground). i had closed the door. i opened it just a crack and the wasps were still there, all over the upper right hand part of the door. i gave them a shot, like a cumshot from hell, and closed the door. ten minutes later i opened it again; they were gone, except for one. i gave him a dowse. then i gave a squirt to the nest. when i thought it was safe enough, i went out and knocked the nest down. it took a couple of tries; it was really on there. you have to give props to these insects that can make those things with nothing but regurgitated wood. after all that is over with, i go into downtown. i like to by a bottle of wine and a sandwich, find a place to sit and eat. lately i've been going to a spot between a bank building and a parking garage. i'm not sure where it comes from, but it has a rotten garbage smell to it. i parked myself at the one wrought-iron table - the chairs tied to it with a cable so it won't be stolen, - and had my sandwich and wine. i was reading a book of philip k. dick short stories i had gotten from the library. this one, "martians come in clouds", is about insect martians, called "buggies" by "terrans", who come to earth in swarms. as i'm reading, someone walks past me. then i noticed she (it was a young woman) had stopped and was crouched on the sidewalk a few feet away from me. she was taking a picture of a bug on the sidewalk. when she was finished and gone, i went over to check out the bug. it was a big one, i can see why she would want to take a picture of it. i remembered that i had my ipad on me, so i took a few pictures, too. i recognized the species, but i had never seen one this big. it was a giant leaf-footed bug. |
before. from a distance, it looked like a leaffooted bug. but on closer inspection, i noticed it had a round, toothed back (pronotum.) turns out it was a wheel bug. turns out they can give a nasty bite, so i'm glad i was too chicken to pick it up. while researching this bug, i found a website called YellowCatArt. someone there had made a metal sculpture of a wheel bug out of "exhaust pipe, regular steel pipe, a pulley thing and a small gear. The legs are rolled steel and the wings are barn tin. The big wheel on his back is a broken gear from an old Daisy Churn that I found out in the pasture." i want one. |