My sign was one. It was dying and looking tatty.
I had made it out of resin and plastic and wood.
So I got 4 and a half years out of it. Not bad.
But the wood is all rotten and soft, so it was a real nausea to take off.
I hate the feel of rotten wood. like a hard shell on the outside and soft inside.
It’s like if you walking in the woods and you stand on a log and your foot goes right through it .
And you foot hits mush, and all creepies crawl out.
Cockroaches and earwigs.
Believe me, I have kept spiders and scorpions and snakes for pets all my life.
Ok, maybe not snakes anymore, because Anne is shit scared of them.
But for me to catch and pickup a snake is no problem. Or a scorpion, or a spider.
But cockroaches just do me in.
There is not one fracking cockroach in my workshop.
I layed down a Napalm Radioactive Layer of poison down when I moved in and that solved all problems.
But we still get these big 3 inch ones that fly in at night.
They actually outside ones but if they inside, they’ll park off no problem.
They always solitary, and they real eeeuuw stuff.
I put a disposable cup over them and then and then I slide a sheet of paper under the cup.
Then I rain a death rain of poison on them from a spray can.
And I throw all of it in the rubbish bin.
Then I wash my hands. Twice.
I read somewhere that banana peals drive cockroaches away.
I think it was in one of those house hold tips in a house-wife’s-corner in the local newspaper.
I can just imagine a house full of banana peels.
All the cockroaches are gone but every fruit fly in the neighbourhood is having a party.
Something to do with the gas that rotting fruit releases.
And fruit flies just love rotting bananas, because there is that saying from my friend James Clark that goes:
“Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana”.
I mean, fruit flies are far better than cockroaches but they can still piss me off because they get into my wine glass.
What do you do when you see two fruit flies in your wine?
Obviously pissed?
Do you dip your finger in and scoop them out and drink the wine? When no-one’s looking.
Or do you throw the wine away, and pour a new glass?
And if it is expensive wine?
Or your last glass of wine on a Sunday night?
Reminds me of a story, all this insect stuff
We were sitting in Monte-Mart tea shop in Kudu Arcade in Pretoria in the late seventies.
One of the hotties, called Laetitia, ordered a salad and when all the food arrived at our table, everyone tucked in.
Halfway through, Laetitia SHRIEKS at the top of her voice.
She was a dramatic chick.
Anyway, there in her salad, is half a cockroach.
The front half.
And the legs are still waving around.
So Rob, the owner, hears this commotion and he comes to the front.
Tries to calm Laetitia.
“Look!” she shrieks, “It’s still alive!”
“Well” Rob says, “at least you know it’s fresh”
We fell about laughing, but Laetitia was not amused at all, I’m afraid.
Sigh– women can be so hard to please sometimes……
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Jerry Fowler 10.31.09 at 12:53 pm
“Sigh– women can be so hard to please sometimes……”
Just sometimes you say? Surely you jest.
Beth Wicker 10.31.09 at 9:03 pm
Thanks for the laugh - you write a great visual image!!! At least she got some protein with her salad……
Here in SC, the Palmetto State, we call the big outside ones “Palmetto Bugs”. Because they are all OVER SC! I grew up in NC, where we don’t have those big ones… just regular roaches. So right after we were married and living in SC I saw my first Palmetto Bug - George was outside walking the dog, and when I saw the bug and screamed he and the dog came racing back inside - he was sure I was being attacked by intruders! Well….he was right…. just not the human kind! I take them in stride now, there are so many here.
Kathy Johnson 10.31.09 at 10:54 pm
I used to work as a cashier in the fanciest (on the top floor, thus most overpriced) bar in the fanciest (tallest in the city, thus most overpriced) hotel in Detroit. One evening a customer started yelling. The waitress rushed to see what the problem was, and returned with the mans’ drink. There was a cockroach swimming in it. The customer wanted his money back plus another drink on the house as an apology. The bar manager on duty was a mellow young guy from Jamaica. He looked at the insect in the the glass, smiled and replied in his smooth Jamaican accent, “I t’ink perhaps we should charge him more for dis drink. After all, da Westin hotel cockroach is a raaaaare and distinguished breed”.
Helen Hill 11.01.09 at 7:04 am
All this talk of insects is making my skin crawl! Fortunately, I’ve only ever seen cockroaches on my computer or TV screens, not in real life, or I would definitely freak out! I’m glad they’re not commonplace where I live, although obviously they do exist here in the UK, in really dirty places.
Peggy Wilson 11.01.09 at 8:36 am
In my part of NC (Outer Banks) we have those big guys as well, some call them palmetto bugs, some call them water bugs. Everybody claims they’re not dirty like roaches, and OBX natives claim they come from Food Lion (grocery chain) and that’s why they shop at Winks which is OBX native owned.
Sandra Graves 11.02.09 at 6:46 am
OMG, I have had long wars with cockroaches when I lived in the South. I despise them. I don’t have the problem up North, although we have other types of bugs here. I determined never to live where the cockroaches had wings - have a real problem with the crawling kind and don’t need that additional method of locomotion to freak me out more.
Good luck with the signage!
(Oh, I loved your latest rose also.)