Bugzooka

Well, I am extra-bad at blogging. It's been, what, a month since my last post? Three weeks? Pathetic. Much of this is due to the living-on-a-mountain-with-spotty-internet problem. By the time I have done ten internet rain dances, given burnt offerings at the altar of the most holy router, and achieved an hour of work in a mere afternoon, if I tried to do anything else my computer would very likely end up out a window. It's pretty pathetic that we're living in one of the most beautiful places in the world, and I'm complaining about the internet, but there you have it.

Some of my basic-human skills have actually improved from this situation, however. There is no radio, so I download podcasts onto my phone when we drive into the big city. (By which I mean small city with several gas stations and a Chipotle.) But when those run out, it's just me and the birds, chirping away, and the bugs. The bugs landing on things. Which I can hear, anywhere in the house, and which makes me freeze, look around furtively, grab my trusty Bugzooka, and go on the prowl.



What, you ask, is a Bugzooka? It is a girl's best friend, is what it is, the long arm of the squeamish law. It looks like this (not the DeWalt thing, the thing on the DeWalt thing):

Its primary prey is the stink bug, although I have found it handy for most icky-looking friends that come to visit. The best part is that it is hubby's job to empty the little chamber at the end. The not-so-best part is that hubby sometimes forgets, and then there is this really weird smell and I wonder where it is coming from and isn't that odd it's like it's localized right next to the...oh. Ew.

The other common vermin class we have encountered is the wee, adorable but sadly disease-ridden mousie. It is really a shame that they are so friggin' cute, and that so many children's books feature them as characters. I always imagine them running home down the mouse hole, tumbling into their cozy little kitchen, where mama mouse is wearing a tiny apron and stirring a pot of cheese stew. Darn you, Little Golden Books!

Unfortunately there is no such thing as a Mousezooka, and anyway I don't think they'd really stay still long to get caught by such a contraption. No, in the end we went for old-school snap traps and cheese, and hubby had the distinct honor of running out of the house in his underwear on a couple of misty mornings to chuck the little cadavers into the woods.

That's opera for you, folks. Glamour, glamour, glamour!