~ the fake flower that people stop to smell ~

The other day, I made a big mistake. heavy sigh... On Sunday after I removed my person from the comfort of the bed and forced it to begin the day, I discovered that I was playing host to a large number of house guests. I was standing at my kitchen counter, waiting for my toast to pop from the toaster, and pondering what I was going to do with myself on that day, when I looked down and noticed that my counter was moving. I have no idea why it took so long for me to notice while standing right before them, but there was an insanely gigantasaurus quantity of ants swarming my kitchen. Even now, after all that I have been through, I fail to understand why this happened to me. Sure, I sometimes leave dollops of raspberry jam on my kitchen counter for a few days before I get around to wiping it off, but I pride myself in not being a total and complete slob. Sure, there is room that I could improve, but as a live-alone kind of person, I think I do pretty well.

At any rate, I swept all of the ants into the sink and drowned them. It was kind of sad, if you care about living creatures. For the rest of the day and for Monday, any time that I went to my kitchen, I found congregations of ants ready to meet their demise down my kitchen faucet. By the end of the day on Monday, I was feeling frustrated. My efforts seemed to yeild no results. I had cleaned every bit of the kitchen and couldn't figure out what would continue to bring out the ants. I was thankful, I should mention, that they were ants and not something truly revolting like spiders or cockroaches. I can crunch an ant with my bare finger and not feel grossed out. But spiders...shudder. Anyhoo... It was near to my bedtime when I began to recall a joke that an old friend, Lorie, used to tell me that I never thought was very funny but somehow enjoyed myself when she told it. Her joke went like this: "How can you tell when you need insecticide?" "When you have an insect inside." Just recalling the joke brings a smile to my face. More importantly, the joke brought to mind the need for something more effective at eliminating pests.

I rummaged around in the cubbord underneath the kitchen sink, looking through the random bottles of chemicles that have been there since before I moved into the apartment. I was thinking if I could find some bleach or really powerful cleaner, that might do the job. In the back, I was excited to find a bottle of Raid bug spray. Now, I'll go ahead and provide the ending to the story before actually finishing the ending to the story.... As I see it, the fault was the label designer for the bug spray, not mine. If they had listed the warnings and precautions at the beginning instead of at the end, after the directions, it could have all been avoided. But alas, the first thing I read were the directions on how to utilize the bug spray and did not even see the warnings and precautions (in fact, the warnings and precautions were listed way down at the bottom, past all of the different language translations of the directions). So, without giving it much thought, I proceeded to spray down my entire kitchen. Like, really well.

When I was finished, I went into my other room to relax before going to bed. After a time, I felt myself growing sleepy and engaged in my pre-bedtime ritual. Now, you may or may not recall that I sleep in my kitchen. Usually, I find this arrangement rather handy - - good for things like midnight snacking, thirst cravings, and the gentle hum of the refridgerator is a nice bedtime noise that cradles me in slumber. That is, unless you've exhausted the aerosol can of bug spray in your rampage against the ants and toxic fumes overwhelm the air which you breathe. Then, sleeping in the kitchen...not so nice. It was at this point that I decided to read the section on warnings and precautions and discovered that it is illadvisable to spray in poorly-ventilated areas (like my kitchen!). I opened my small window and turned on some fans, but the damage was done. My wee and tiny apartment was filled with toxic fumes. And I breathed it in for eight hours before I had to go to work. Now, a few days later, it is pretty much cleared out, but my throat is so ridiculously sore and my glands are so ridiculously swollen. Not the dumbest thing I've ever done, but close.

Posted by jennifer at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)