Bugged Out

     Back in 1979 there was a movie called The Amityville Horror.  I don't recall the entire story, other that it was supposed to be based on a true event, but there was one scene from the movie that has always stuck in my mind.  It was an upstairs window, full of flies.

     My husband always says the only good thing about cold weather is there are no bugs.  It makes him quite happy when he can drive his beloved chariot somewhere, usually very fast, and return with no bugs plastered on the front.  

     My studio, which is really my youngest daughters' old bedroom, but studio has a much snazzier ring to it, has four windows facing the south.  It offers a great view when I need to take a break and reflect about what I'm working on.  I can see fields and trees in the distance and my garden in the backyard.

     Now that the weather has turned colder, the garden is bare and most of the fields have been harvested.  The bugs have almost disappeared, except for two species, House Flies and Asian Beetles, which, around these parts, we all refer to as Lady Bugs.  They really are not Lady Bugs, but they look like them and they stink.

     Flies and Lady Bugs (aka Asian Beetles) do not like cold weather, they like nice warm houses.  I don't know if it's because my house is old, but some how they find a way in.  They gather on the south side of the house and plan their attack.  My studio is now filled with them and the windows look like a scene from the above mentioned movie.

     I think they spend all summer watching old reruns of Star Trek because they have learned the secret of teleportation.  I have sealed every crack and crevice with caulking, or that wonderful foam in a can, and still, they find their way inside.

     Once inside, they have nothing to do but try to get back outside. They fly around aimlessly, bumping into walls and off the ceiling or gather on the windows having forgotten their teleportation suaviness.  Every so often, one will get whacked by a blade on the ceiling fan, sending his little carcass in a straight trajectory to the wall and that makes me smile.

    They dive bomb my work space and if I ignore them, they do a kamikaze raid into my teacup or my hair.  When that happens I grab my faithful companion, the vacuum and we chase them around the room and suck them out of the windows.  Then we wait.  We wait for it to get really, really cold and then we go outside and turn them loose.  It is their just reward for turning me into a crazed bug killer.

     If you see me outside, late, on a cold dark night, dragging the vacuum cleaner behind me, think nothing of it.  I'm just a little buggy.