Back to the homepage.
Back to the index.

Date: January 9th, 2020

Time of Writing: Started at 7:37 PM, interrupted at 8:04 PM, resumed at 8:22 PM.

Weather: Numbingly cold, again.

Mood: Intrepid.

Day Overview: An incredibly early start to my day today; I woke up at 7:30 AM for a change! And I thought yesterday was ludicrous, oh my god. I rose from my bed, walked out to the living room, and the front door opened all on its own. My brother had been waiting for the busses for thirty minutes in the sub 20 degree cold, and none showed up - of course, this being good ol' Hometown, three busses that had bunched together came immediately after he made it back to the house. I won't fault him for coming back inside, though, it felt incredibly cold out (whether it actually was is a different story) and I don't want him dying of exposure to the elements or anything. I asked why he didn't walk to the subway station and apparently the line that services our part of the city was FUBAR this morning as well. He wound up getting an Uber to school, and I hung out at home until it was time for the day's activity, getting lunch with some old friends that I've known since I was young. While I was in the city square waiting for them to show up, I ran into my friend Edward's mom, who happened to be on the phone with him at the time. Small world.

I intended to write more about my time with Phoenix and Victoria today, and it was a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, we went to get cream puffs and other food and caught up on our lives with one another, but none of that would entertaining to anyone who didn't know us or any of our friends that we would have talked about. No, what I'm going to talk about next is what just happened a few minutes ago; my mother and I dueling a bug to the death.

It was, as I mentioned, a few minutes ago. I was in the middle of writing this very post when suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see it - an ominous black dot moving around the dining room. My fear sense triggers and I stand up from my chair, and there in the center of my vision - a moth! It's way too early in the year for there to be moths! I exclaim, as I reach for the electric fly swatter on top of the wardrobe. I don't do well with bugs, and especially not moths, but I was prepared to kill the monstrous creature as soon as it got anywhere near me, zapping it to death with Zeus' tennis racket (Harbor Freight has a lot of good stuff for cheap). Then, it landed on one of the chandelier lights, and I saw it for what it really was; a gigantic, terrifying, flying beetle!

I am even worse with beetles than with moths. If they're not airborne, then I can try to trap them, get them into a container, and set them free in the wild. It's better than flailing around trying to kill them. However, I knew this one was airborne. It could not survive this encounter. Either it would go, or I would. But alas! I could not strike at it. I nudged the chandelier to try and loosen it from its fixture near the lightbulb, but it merely evacuated to the anchor of the chandelier and started to do circles around it on the ceiling, taunting me. The apartment I live in is located inside a somewhat old house. The ceiling to the dining room is plaster, displaying cracks and other signs of fragility and age. One false swing and I could accidentally knock a chunk loose. I've had bad experiences with plaster ceilings in the past; when I was twelve, I woke up one day to find plaster all over the living room couch and a giant hole in the sky. It took a month or two before the ceiling was replaced and for that time I was forbidden from entering the living room at all, we put up a temporary wall between it and the rest of the house, which was fine unless we needed to live because the living room is connected to the front door, but I'll leave how we managed to escape our own apartment to your imagination as I continue with this beetle story.

So I had the beetle where I wanted him; in my sights. But I couldn't leave the room to get the bug spray, or else when I came back he was sure to have disappeared somewhere. Luckily, my mother came to the rescue, as she also hates bugs. See, if my brother would have gotten off his ass he would have killed it without any of the fuss that ensued from his refusal. Instead, it was down to my mother and I, insectophobe's the both of us, to dispatch this carapaced cretin ourselves. We warily moved the electronics off of the table and turned off the chandelier lights, not wanting to accidentally start any fires (my mom's logic, not mine). Quickly we got a flashlight on the bug, and saw that it was still making mocking merry-go-rounds on the ceiling. All we had to do was wait for it to come around. If the bug spray didn't finish the job, I'd swing at the injured creature with the electro-swatter. It was a foolproof plan, except for when my mom sprayed it and it didn't react, continuing to circle the chandelier until it was on the other side of the chandelier. This beetle possessed intelligence beyond its size, for it had just observed one of the classic strategies of warfare - divide and conquer!!

The way that the room is set up, there was no way for my mother and I to be on the same side of the chandelier anymore. She was no longer able to go about standing in the threshold of the living room, but instead on the opposite side closer to the kitchen. The next shot would have to be the killing blow. She hesitated a bit (but you can't protect me if the bug comes this way!) but eventually she readied the canister, aimed, and fired at the bug. This time the bug was loosened from its perch. It took off, darting around the room and heading ultimately in my direction. I swung and narrowly missed, and the bugger landed on the living room wall. The beetle had successfully escaped, but it had been wounded, its pace now staggered and confused as it tried to move onto the ceiling. A change in tactic was necessary, for the crevasse the beetle situated itself in was hard to reach with the rounded surface of the electro-swatter. We decided to get a swiffer, an excellent polearm if I've ever seen one, and flatten it against the ceiling. I readied myself with the electro-swatter in case the bug fled yet again, knowing that I could not miss again. My mother, more comfortable with the distance the swiffer put between herself and the bug, stepped in and crushed it against the ceiling in one quick motion before trying to hand the swiffer to me. I took it and set about grinding the bug into the ceiling, making absolutely sure it was dead - I've been wrong before, and I could not take that chance with a bug ripe for zombification. Fortunately, once I removed the swiffer from the ceiling, there remained only a dark stain where the bug once was. My mother and I, relieved, shared a quick hug and a laugh about the absurdity of our travails against the meager bug. It was a hard battle between two skilled factions, but in the end, mankind prevailed over the insects yet again.

And then my brother came out at us and told us to shut the fuck up because we were laughing too loud.

On My Mind: I need to buy a salt gun.

Consumed:

Produced: Got some of those revisions done today that I've been talking about and not actually doing. Turns out I have longer to do them than I thought, so I'll take my time and stuff some of those into tomorrow's schedule. I don't have plans so I'll probably be staying at home and catching up on some other writing and reading anyway.

Other Thoughts:Thank you all for the overwhelming response to the Sad Cat Gallery. I must unfortunately admit that progress on adding more Sad Cats will have to pause for a moment, because I've received just so many of them that it'll be hard to add them all at once without sacrificing a lot of my time to do so. That said, you'll be all set to send more when I give the go-ahead. Once again, thank you for your support, and for reading.