a last word on bugs

I am going to have to stop going on and on about bugs. I am also going to have to stop going on and on about Seattle, and a number of other topics that I just seem to return to, again and again, to the annoyance of my closest friends and relatives.

But really, I have learned to live with bugs. My house is a lot like Joe’s Apartment - an MTV comedy sketch that was almost before my time, but came at just the right time for me to be old enough and concerned enough to get around the parental controls on my parent’s TV. You might remember how Joe co-existed somewhat happily with a prolific colony of cockroaches in his disgusting bachelor apartment. I’m no bachelor, and I don’t think I am disgusting, but I am learning to co-exist with my own colony of f***ers.

That’s what I call them. F***ers. I use this word so rarely that I can’t even bring myself to write it down without asterisks, but my tongue comes unhinged whenever I see one in my home.

Out here, people refer to these horrible beasts as water-bugs, which I think is kind when they are referring to one seen on my patio, but basically denial overall. My good neighbor, who shares my East wall and my bug problem, looked these “water bugs” up online and discovered them to be “Oriental Cockroaches.” I think there may be other varieties living amongst the Orientals, but mostly it’s these big black beasts that I am referring to when I familiarly use the term “f***ers.”

I was pregnant with Vivienne when we moved into this townhouse, in an “up and coming” section of the city that is currently a lot less prospective than that term seems. One night, pregnant, feverish, depressed from broken down car situation, and alone (Lydia with in-laws, David working out of town) a young co-worker dropped me off at my new home, where I spent most of the night paralyzed with fear on the couch, eyes completely glued to a large specimen on the other side of the first floor- about 15 feet away. Fortunately, all my family lives in a time zone three hours earlier than mine, so at that late hour I had a short list of people I could turn to. In this case, it was my dad.

I don’t even remember how that showdown ended. I know I had a lot of telephonic moral support, but I think I might have let the beast actually get away. I think that I spent the better part of the night on the couch, on the phone, sweating with fever and fear. I’m pretty sure that my nemesis went under the baseboard, where he/she had many, many little baby bugs, which have plagued me for the rest of my years in this house.

I am actually ridiculously, meticulously, and obsessively clean- to an annoying degree. I am constantly on my toddlers’ heals, snapping at them about their mess, constantly following my co-workers around the store, cleaning what they have already cleaned, and going after my dear husband, putting things away where he can’t fathom to find them again, in a sincere effort to organize. My efforts, however sincere, are constantly thwarted. My house—the structure itself—is a greater force than my own neuroses.

I’ve found myself in the throws of combat. I actually have bombed my own house with Raid, once a year, for the last three years. In all other respects, I am totally “green” and overboard organic, of coarse. But when it comes to these bugs, I don’t mess around. I understand that I am subjecting myself and my dearest loved-ones to carcinogens which will likely shorten my life-span, and this is a sacrifice I am willing to make. It’s me or them.


Recently, my mother in law compared me to our missionary friend, who lives in one of the poorest countries in Africa. She made this comparison after witnessing me kill a crane-fly (incidentally: what a stupid bug). Our friend reportedly has killed African sized f***ers in her kitchen with her bare hands. Actually, she has admitted as much. It’s true. Well, friends, this is the level I have come to—being compared to my African missionary friend, just because I have a tendency now to go after a swarm of baby “water bugs” armed with only my fist and an angry slurry of “F***ers! F***ers! F***ers!!!” and other curse words.

I know my friend does not swear when she kills her cockroaches!

So this war, among a few other things, has contributed to my discontent with my home. A truth I only recently admitted out loud to David. I’ve never wanted to add this burden to what he carries- that I hate our house. I felt like it was very vain to feel this way. There are a lot of serious problems in this world, and I am going to complain because I am the proverbial baker’s wife, who has no bread. David beautifies other people’s homes and front walks all day, and our pipes host generations of water bugs.

I really do not want to list all the renovation needs of my house here. Everyone thinks they live with a list of home improvement projects, but ours stand out to friends who visit: a “caution” sign over our stairway, where plywood holds the crumbling drywall up. The sagging front porch. The scary basement that smells of feral cats.

Often, I feel trapped here, in my own home, afraid to do my laundry downstairs, not wanting to keep my shades up so that my crazy neighbor can peep in, or unable to make full use of major appliances. It’s a frustrating, stifling feeling. And I think that I have transferred a lot of how I feel about my house to how I perceive the place I live in general. I think of this town as stifling. I think of this culture as exclusive. Parts of it are cute because I’ve decorated or remodeled a little, but the space itself is not comfortable. I can’t relax.

I’m wondering if my perpetual home-sickness could be blamed largely on the level of discomfort that I continue to operate at in my every day life. When something is difficult, don’t we naturally remember what was easier? Of course we look back to better times. When I was sick as an adult with the flu, I felt such a longing for my mother. I wanted her to be there to comfort me and just hold my hair back from my head. I projected all the longing from my lost childhood onto my one lonely moment as a sick, single college student.

Don’t we all do that, from time to time? Just a little? Maybe now that I have named it, I can get over it.

What’s amazing is that someday my daughters will look back at this time. Their memories will be a little hazy, with some very clear spots. They will remember this little house, and it will be big in their minds. They won’t remember bugs, except that their mother was swift and fierce in removing them. They will remember delicious dinners around our small table and all the wonderful days (every day!) that Daddy came home from work late—very late— and played with them. They will grow up, and they will long for another time and another place that is no longer accessible to them. And what is so detestable to me now will be the very things their sweetest memories are made of.