Little Black Bugs Straight from Hell

Summer is here, which for me and my wife means spending mornings and evenings on our deck. We watch the birds, we enjoy some wine, we sometimes eat dinner….and we get physically assaulted by these pesky tiny black bugs that destroy the serenity me and my wife so desperately seek.

The little bastards have arrived.

Believe me when I tell you this: They cannot be eliminated. Thousands upon thousands of these annoying little vagrants fly in from God knows where and with the agility and body control of an infant, they ping you in the face, poke you in the eyes and occasionally fly up your nose. They have almost no sense of direction and no respect for your personal space. None.  

Desperate for a solution we turned to Google, where we found several people who clearly had no idea what they were talking about.

They told us, for example, that white vinegar in a bowl will attract them. As a result, they would fly straight into the bowl and promptly drown. No questions asked. Problem solved. Except…

It didn’t work. Not even close. They completely ignored it. In fact, not only did they ignore it, it seemed to me that it might have actually attracted more of them.

We also tried citronella; the biggest and most successful scam ever perpetrated on the American consumer. We burned 3 torches filled with the stuff along with several more table candles.

The deck quickly became a health hazard with enough smoke and citronella to choke a fricken horse. Small plants started to wither and droop. The neighbors, staring out their windows, called for their kids to come inside for “dinner”. Still…the tiny bugs came.

Out of pure frustration and in need of a distraction, we created a new game. The game, which we called, “Take a Swim and Die Bitch”, involved grabbing the little guys with our bare hands and dropping them directly into the bowl of vinegar. A very satisfying game, indeed.

Feeling good about our evolutionary superiority over such worthless little insects, we sat back and smiled as we sipped our wine. It was good to be a human.

Then, I kid you not, the little shits who only seconds earlier were on their creepy hard-shell backs, kicking their little insect legs, literally flipped over and started climbing right up the side of the bowl. A mad dash to freedom.

At this point, we looked out from our vantage point on the deck and saw an entire backyard filled with citronella smoke and bowls of white vinegar surrounding us, each with little black specs climbing up the sides.

It was at this moment that I hung my head low, shoulders slouched, spirit broken and waved my white flag.

We picked up our bowls of vinegar. We extinguished the torches and candles that once held so much promise. And to avoid inhalation of toxic fumes, we Army crawled our way across the deck and back to the door from which we came.

We clearly lost this battle, but the war is far from over. Stay tuned…

Rick