Thursday, October 22, 2009

Things Boys Do: Boys & Bugs

I'd say it's pretty standard that it's the husband's duty to eradicate the house of bugs -- it's one of the perks of having a guy around (ya know, that and twisting off pickle jar lids). While I'm not particularly terrified of any specific bug, I definitely do not like them, and I definitely call for Tanner to come and deal with them. There is one caveat, I insist on a short, relatively painless death, or catch and release if it's in the house. I don't like to see any creature suffer even if it is a black widow spider. (Yep, I found one of these yesterday, and had Tanner come back and smoosh it with stick after his first attempt, spraying it with wasp spray, left her wriggling and squirming for way too long to be humane.)

Well, Tanner's taken it to a new level with dealing the bugs. We've been having trouble with flies lately. Tanner says they come out after it rains, and it doesn't help that we're surrounded by livestock of all kinds on all sides of our house. (Plus Tanner says I must have been born in a barn because I dawdle around and leave the door open for hours while I go in and out of the house, let the dogs in, etc.) Flies aren't really high up there on the yikes meter, but they are annoying and gross. (I learned in junior high that they regurgitate all over your food while they're eating it.) We don't have a fly swater, so Tanner has developed his own method.

He catches the flies in his bare hand, out of mid-air or by swiping them off the table. And I'm not just talking about big, bumbling, drunk flies, I'm talking about little, darty, speedy guys. And Tanner DOES NOT miss. I think he's failed maybe twice that I've seen in the one month we've been living together. It's incredible. His hands move like lightening. Once he's got them in his fist, he gives them a quick shake to make sure he's got em (and a quick peak to me since I never believe they're really in there), and them BAAM he throws them against the floor, striking them immediately dead. It's bizarre. I mean really bizarre. I have a feeling as this cohabitation journey continues, I'm going to learn a lot more about weird things boys do.


Tanner may be the hunter, but I'm the gatherer.
Here are his victims from the other evening.


Another weird fly-related moment last night. I found one of the little guys had been trapped in the refridgerator, and presumably froze to death. I sat it on the table next to Tanner so he could see how perfectly it had been preserved. And the little bugger came back to life!

7 comments:

  1. Clint hung a plastic baggie of water on our back porch. Oddly enough it worked. Tanner's method is definitely the more stealthy of the two.

    Tara

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  2. Hahahaha. That's hilarious! I love picturing Tanner snatching flies out of the air :)

    Also, I totally predicted that fly-coming-to-life out of the fridge outcome. Next time it happens, go grab a horse hair from outside. When we were kids and bored out at the barn, we used to catch flies, put them in the fridge, and then tie a horse hair to their legs while they were frozen. Then when they'd come back to life they'd be on a leash flying around (gross I know...but as kids we were so amused).

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  3. Boys are boys forever!It sounds like you two are figuring out you must embrace the gross with the beautiful with a sense of humor.This was a great read and started out my morning with a big smile!!!
    Love, Mom Haynes

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  4. Love it!! I never pictured him to be a Karate kid fly catching master!

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  5. Didn't Obama do something like that once??

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  6. Your dad can do it too. Maybe they can have a contest. When I was little, my dad caught locusts and pinned them to the wall in the living room while they were alive so we could hear them. I was too afraid to take the pin out because I knew it would fly down my shirt or into my hair. We just weren't very humane back then. My dad thought their noise was really neat. That's central Texas for you.

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  7. Mary -- Tanner had to explain your Karate Kid reference to me :) But you inspired him with a new goal, and he's busting on his chopstix :P

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