The War on Bugs

Let me start off by pointing out that I'm not the totally squeamish type. I mean, I'm not about to go out and buy a tarantula for a pet, but I'm not the type to shriek helplessly at every creepy-crawly and jump up on a chair to wait for someone else to kill or relocate it. During my 18 months in Ireland, I was the spider-killer for my arachnophobic companions. During a year in college when I lived in a basement, my sister and I had a catch-and-release program for spiders (I'd been reading a book called Phantom by Susan Kay in which there are a few bits that inspire some sympathy for all spiders).

The creepy-crawlies that have found their way into my Thailand house, however, have successfully earned two shrieks. The first was for a cockroach. This wasn't an ordinary cockroach--if you place two quarters next to each other and draw an oval around them, you'll approach the size of this particular cockroach. And it wasn't some cockroach I just found on the floor, either. I'd just gathered a load of dirty laundry in my arms, and this beastie crawled out from between the clothes and jumped to the ground--from my arms. (Insert shudder here.)

The second shriek was, in fact, for a spider. More particularly, this spider:

To give you some perspective: those cables in the corner? Yeah, they're a shade over an inch across. Which means that if you include all the legs, this guy was about the size of my hand. I found him a few nights ago up near the ceiling in my kitchen, in the corner nearest my bedroom. I'm all for spiders that eat mosquitoes and cockroaches and other bugs, but spiders that big do not belong inside. Plus, in a tropical and unfamiliar country, I have no idea of when I'm dealing with something poisonous (I've heard since that most of the larger species are not--yay?), so this specimen had to go. So I got my mop (the only way I could conceivably reach it), and tried to kill it. And failed. The shriek happened when it moved--it ran towards my bedroom. Very fast. And dropped out of sight. And I couldn't find it. But I knew it didn't go into my bedroom, so I managed to sleep that night, although it took some time for my heart rate to go down.

I also have to be careful of ants. If I'm not careful about what I eat where, I'll find a trail of the dutiful things on any conceivable surface. I did wake up one morning to two little ants crawling down my arm . . . it was the last time I ate anywhere near my bed. To give them credit, though, they don't stay where there isn't any food. Which means they've encouraged me to a greater level of cleanliness. And while they might be irritating, they at least don't bite like the fire ants of Atlanta.

There's an ant-sized species yet to be identified that occasionally appears on the floor by my front door and doesn't seem to do anything more than spread out to sit there and exist. I spray the area once a week and sweep them up at least as often as that. It's not a food area, so I have no idea what's attracting them. I'm hopeful that if I keep spraying and killing them off, they'll soon take the hint.

The other notable battle in the war on bugs is against mosquitoes. I'm a bit notorious in my extended family for my hatred of mosquitoes. This is really just because of a single camping trip in the Uinta Mountains over ten years ago. In my defense, the air was unusually thick with mosquitoes. And I'm the type of person people bring on campouts because all the mosquitoes are bound to find me and leave everyone else alone. Even that wouldn't be so bad here if every single bite didn't swell to the size of a nickel. I knew I'd have quite the time of it in Thailand, but figured I could just use a lot of repellant and grin and bear the results. This plan has mostly worked. And I've discovered that tiger balm works wonders on the itchy bites. For most of my first month here, I've only averaged a couple of bites a week. Then last week, the farmers started draining the fields for planting all up and down the canal road where I live. Which meant the mosquitoes were looking for new living quarters. Several decided my bathroom looked ideal. I've found some spray that keeps them at bay, but I did have a moment when I realized I had enough bites on my legs that they could be mistaken for chicken pox--if they were smaller, of course.