The Village Idiot: Pest control can be big issue
Bob and Beverly came up for the weekend. All she did the entire time was complain about the cockroaches in their new apartment in the city. “You don’t have cockroaches out here on the farm, do you?”
“No,” Sue assured them, “They’re not a problem here.” Sue was looking out the window at a 15-pound woodchuck eating his way through her cabbage and Brussels sprouts in her garden while Beverly went on about her cockroaches. The woodchuck was eating only the cabbages the raccoons hadn’t touched yet. Sue really wasn’t thinking about woodchucks and raccoons. She was more concerned about the chipmunks she had found living in her greenhouse yesterday. They had stolen a bunch of bulbs she was planning to plant this week. She couldn’t get more because her car was in the shop having the front fender replaced because she hit a deer on her way into town last week.
Last year about this time she hit a flying turkey at 40 mph and it blew out her windshield. Bob and Beverly were up here then, too. Beverly assured Sue that it must have been something else because it’s a well-known fact that turkeys can’t fly.
“Oh, they can fly all right,” said Sue. “What they can’t do is see my car.”
Beverly was not convinced. A chef on a talk show had said holiday turkeys can’t fly, and who are you going to believe, someone without a windshield or a chef who’s been on television?
But Beverly was now concerned with her more immediate problem.
“Every time we turn on a light, the cockroaches scatter,” she said. “It’s the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”
As she’s talking, I’m watching a mouse run back and forth under our wood stove. I’ve been trying to catch this guy all week. It’s the healthiest mouse I’ve ever seen. Because it lives entirely on the cat’s food. The cat we found out, only catches outdoor mice.
“I hear that if somebody moves out of the apartment next door to you, you’ll be invaded with cockroaches because they are looking for food,” Beverly said.
“An urban myth,” I told her. “They are looking for companionship.”
Beverly does not laugh. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t know what it’s like to live with vermin.”
“Technically, I don’t think bugs are vermin. They’re more like …”
“Hold that thought,” she says, “I’m going out for a smoke.”
Sue and I roll our eyes at each other. We don’t bother to tell Beverly about the cluster flies. We don’t tell her about the garden snakes, the hornet’s nest over the back door, the squirrels in the attic, the possums, the coyotes, the lady bug invasions, the muskrats and whatever it is that left the yard-wide circle of pheasant feathers out by the pond. We don’t tell her that the biggest pest we have by far is weekend visitors.
Beverly comes back in. “Your new cat is beautiful, but very shy,” she says. “What’s his name?”
Uh-oh. Maybe we should have told her about the skunk that’s been tearing up the side yard for the past few weeks. Before Sue can blurt out “What new cat?” I say, “The big black and white one?”
“Yes, with the long hair. He’s gorgeous.”
“We call him Buster. He hasn’t had his shots yet, don’t try to pet him.”
“You guys have the life,” Beverly said. “All day long I’m down in the city fighting battles with nasty cockroaches and you guys up here without a problem in the world. What I wouldn’t give to have the simple life like you guys.”
(Jim Mullen contributes regularly to Entertainment Weekly, where he can be reached at [email protected].)