I must confess, I carry the combined, dare I say compound weight?, of the myriad flies I have killed, and ants, ohmigawd! There was the yellow jacket nest in my bamboo, in the ivy beneath, and in the ivy under the big tree in my front yard, and the dozens of wasp nests that have come down at my hand. How about slugs? We moved into our house in 1981 and in the next few years there was a slug infestation. I was out killing slugs in the deep twilight night after night.
I am grateful to say I never killed any of the possums. At one point I encountered five in the garage where we left the door ajar for the cats. There was the possum who discovered that he could bury himself in the box with all the shipping peanuts and thus stay in for days and days, eating the cats' food, drinking their water and pooping any damn wheres he wanted to. That one drove me crazy.
Finally after days of hunting, that possum let a little of his back show dark amongst the peanuts, so I folded the lid flaps over and gave him a huge shaking on the way out of the garage. I poured him and the peanuts out and I have never seen a possum so pissed before or since. That was the last possum in my garage. You don't have to kill them.
Still, I think I will be reincarnated as a bug...
Fly Story
I've caught you napping,
the way your eyes work, compound
and deep shiny black,
and you fly backwards
as easily as forwards,
and sideways to dodge
the descending hand,
but I've caught you in a jar,
feel you cuss me out.
March 31, 2011 3:48 PM
If you come back as a bug (which I think unlikely), you'll probably be one of those stunningly beautiful scarab beetles or dragonflies or something. :) It would be cool to see a litany poem about those slaughtered insects... me, I feel no such remorse, to my embarrassment.
ReplyDeleteRemorse??!! Who said anything about remorse?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the scarab beetle comment, however, The Mummy movies have sort of ruined big black shiny beetles for me.