Monday night, I had to rush into the living room at the stroke of 8:30 so Farmer H could put a bandaid on my leg hole before sneaking off to bed. I've been leaving my leg exposed during the day, and putting on the bandaid at night, so as not to scrape off my mostly-formed scab while writhing in the bedsheets. Was that too graphic?
Anyhoo... as I was about to turn between the right-angled ends of the short couch and long couch, I saw something on the carpet.
"Oh, no! A bug! I don't know if it's a cricket or something else. I hate crickets! Huh. It's shaped like a cricket, but it didn't jump."
I stood for a moment with my dark blue Croc on top of that bug.
"It's under my foot. Will you get it when you get up?"
"Don't grind it into the carpet!" Said the man wearing only a thin layer of threadbare cotton between his rumpus and the recliner.
"I'm not grinding. I am making sure it's dead. I'm not so sure... it isn't smashed."
I opened my bandaid. It's not like Farmer H has to do any work besides slap that plastic bandage on my leg hole, and pat it down so it sticks. Which he seems to do GRUDGINGLY! Anyhoo... after sticking it to me, Farmer H sat back down in the recliner.
"Hey. Aren't you going to get that bug?"
"Yes. You'd have a fit if I went by you before you got past the couches."
"No. I don't want to walk by that bug. Pick it up."
Farmer H finally arose, armed with a limp store-brand Bounce fabric softener sheet left from his laundry he had folded earlier. He bent over, ample-rumpusing me in his baggy tighty-whities, to pick up the bug, which SKITTERED AWAY AS HE TRIED TO PINCH IT!
"SEE? I told you I wasn't sure it was dead!"
"It's dead now. I smashed it between my fingers."
"Wait! Where are you going?"
"To put it in the wastebasket."
"Sure. You THINK it's dead. Just like I did. But now it will crawl out of the Bounce and out of the wastebasket and up my leg and under the bandage and into my leg hole and eat me from the inside out!"
I would much have preferred a flushing, or a release outside...
6 comments:
Oooh, the fun you have, now that you're retired. I get positively giddy when I read stories like this. The pinching the still-alive bug. Farmer H nearly mooning you. The bug that--by now--has crawled out of the trashcan and is plotting revenge.
Ahhh. I'm green with envy...
Sioux,
As my best old ex-teaching buddy Mabel used to tell me: "You're going to LOVE the Forever Vacation." You'll get there. Eventually.
Now I'm looking over my shoulder for that bug, as I sit at the table, just one thin kitchen counter away from that wastebasket...
I really don't think that bug is going to manage that after the squishing it got from Farmer H. I am surprised there is still a hole in your leg after all this time.
River,
I really didn't think that bug could survive under my full weight and Croc! My leg hole is more of a gentle depression, mostly covered by a scab, except about a thumbtack head size opening that must have been the deepest part. It heals over, but gets scraped off during sleep, covered by the bandage.
I am not a fan of bugs in my house. I have a killer fly swatter, just ask my dogs.
Kathy,
By the time I fetched the fly swatter from the kitchen, that bug would have disappeared, and made me stress over it for weeks!
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