spugbrap’s blog

Last night, when I was taking the trash out, I noticed that the trash can in the garage was making a lot of noise. As I went to pull the drawstrings on the trash bag, I saw little worms crawling around the outer edge of the bag. Upon further inspection, I noticed that there were hundreds more crawling around inside the bag. Then I realized what they were: MAGGOTS!

So, I went about trying to kill them. I had a can of Lysol Disinfectant Spray with me, so I tried that first. I sprayed it all over the top of the trash bag, and sprayed a good bit into the trash bag, as well. At that point, I noticed that there were some crawling around on the floor, too. So, I sprayed them as well. But, that didn’t phase them one bit. They kept right on crawling. I carefully grabbed the trash bag and ran it outside to the curb (good thing it was trash night!). Then, I scanned the garage for anything that might kill bugs.

The next poison I saw was a spray bottle of Lysol All-Purpose Cleaner. I assumed that it was stronger stuff than the aerosol spray can I had just used, so I decided to try it on the bugs. I could almost hear them laughing, as they kept on crawling, sometimes walking directly through big puddles of it, when they could have easily gone around. They just didn’t care. By this time, there were about 20 of them crawling around on the floor (that I could see). I had to use something specifically designed to kill bugs.

So, I ran inside and grabbed a can of RAID. The can we had handy did not say anything about maggots or flies on the label, but I hoped it might work better than nothing. So I sprayed it all over the floor, wherever I saw maggots. I made bigger puddles wherever there were several of them close together. They didn’t seem to mind, and just kept going about their business. By now, I’d seen them crawling under a nearby pile of wood, and more seemed to be crawling out, than were crawling in. Either way, this showed me that they were not only resilient little bastards, but that they were probably already well established in every nearby dark place/crevice. I was freaking out, now, because they seemed to be multiplying, right before my eyes. I could see probably 40 of them, at that point.

Next, I called Lacey, and asked her to look up how to kill maggots. She read about a lot of things that DON’T work, and then found some things that supposedly had worked for some people:

- Products containing permethrin

- Boiling water

- Bleach

I looked around the garage, some more, and found a can of pesticide, in a powder form. A quick glance at the ingredients confirmed that it did have the chemical I was hoping for: permethrin! So I started shaking the powder everywhere I could see the maggots, and also tried to make a barrier around the area that I had been treating thus far, to try and contain them. Somehow, it did not come as much of a surprise when they kept right on crawling, through pools and piles of 4 different poisons.

This was really testing my sanity. I kept worrying that they were on my shoes, or might have grabbed onto the bottom of my pants legs. The barrier didn’t work at all. They were branching out in every direction, at this point. Everywhere I looked, I saw maggots. I could probably see close to 100 of them, at this point, and I knew that there were lots more that I couldn’t see. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, they were nearly invisible. Their coloring was a perfect match to my concrete garage floor. Without their constant wiggling, I might not have even noticed them. I felt helpless and defeated. But I still had one trick to try: bleach.

I grabbed a huge bottle of bleach, that just happened to be within arm’s reach, and started pouring it on them. I was a little worried about the fact that I was mixing so many harmful chemicals together, but I was much more concerned about killing these evil maggots. They kept right on crawling, though! UGH! Lacey had said something about bleach taking a half hour to kill them, though, so I tried to be patient. The maggots were continuing to expand, and to hide underneath every box, piece of wood, etc. I tried to move a few things out of the way, so I could pour bleach in more places, but I’m pretty sure that every time I moved something, it just helped them spread (because they were already crawling on everything).

Uh-oh, the bleach-pesticide-pesticide-cleaner-disinfectant mix was now working its way across the garage. Apparently the garage slightly slopes so that liquid runs towards the outside driveway. But we’ve got all kinds of bikes, scooters, helmets, jumpropes, baseball bats, etc. stored in the garage, some of it in cardboard boxes. I scrambled to move everything cardboard out of the way, but I was a bit too late. So I had to empty the contents of the wet cardboard boxes, before their contents got wet. Empty them where, though? Wherever I could. Stacked on top of toolboxes, bikes, shelves, plastic tubs, etc. Just had to hurry. I didn’t want this poison mixture getting all over my kids’ stuff.

Finally, I got things pretty well moved around, so the little poison rivers could proceed towards the exit. I figured this was also helping me to spread the poison around, so if the bleach did work after a while, it was already covering a wider area. It was getting very late, so I started picking up my cans of poison and putting them on a shelf. As I was doing that, I kept noticing more maggots in places that hadn’t been treated [enough] yet, so I poured more bleach on them.

I hated leaving the garage in this state, but I really needed to get to bed. I wished there was some way I could burn the tiny demon spawn, without destroying my car or house. Believe me, if I ever find a pile of these things outside, they’re going to burn. Revenge will be mine, someday. Unfortunately there was nothing more I could do, out there, so I closed the garage and prepared to go in for the night.

Before going inside, though, I shook my pants and checked my shoes for maggots. When I got inside, I watched the floor behind me as I walked, to make sure I didn’t see anything wiggling. I was very freaked out and paranoid, at that point, so I undressed slowly and carefully, putting my clothes and shoes into trash bags.

Then, I went up and took a hot shower. Every drop of water, running down my leg or through my hair, made me feel like maggots were crawling on me. I almost felt like taking a bath in bleach, but I wasn’t quite that far gone. If I had actually found maggots crawling on my skin, I might have gone to that extreme. That was one of the most unpleasant experiences I’ve ever, and I’m sure my words cannot express just how horrible it felt.

This morning, I’m feeling a lot better (sanity-wise), but am not touching the garage door until the pest control people come. So, I’m staying home today so I can ensure that these evil creatures get annihilated ASAP.

I’ve blogged before about how it pisses me off when people don’t flush the toilet (or wash hands, for that matter) at work, and about some ways that I deal with public restroom annoyances (the comments on that one were more interesting than the post itself!). But yesterday, at Chuck E Cheese’s, I encountered something that I’ve never seen in a public restroom before, and wish I never had.

I was really compelled to make this announcement over the PA system (but didn’t):
“Would the person who left the bloody stools in the men’s bathroom please flush the damn toilet!”

Seriously, that was disgusting. It’s not uncommon to find unflushed toilets in public restrooms, just as it’s not uncommon to find pee all over the seats, floors, etc. This is one reason why many people are too grossed out by public restrooms (another reason being the potential to pick up nasty diseases from toilets seats, and I’m sure there are lots more reasons). But jeez, if you’ve got gastrointestinal issues, such that you’re shitting blood, in a public toilet, especially at a fun-for-kids establishment, couldn’t you have the courtesy to flush the damn toilet?!?

Of course, I did not use that toilet. But I did flush it with my foot on my way out. Nasty!

We bought some Meunster cheese from the deli at Safeway recently, and it is the worst Meunster cheese I’ve ever had. It looks pretty normal, aside from some little tiny holes throughout it, but it smells wrong, and hardly tastes like Meunster at all. Meunster is one of my favorite kinds of cheese, but I can’t bring myself to eat this stuff. The brand on the label is Primo Taglio.

If this was an isolated incident, I would just chalk it up to one bad batch of cheese. But looking back, we’ve made the mistake of buying cheese from the Safeway deli before. We kept forgetting which grocery store had the nasty cheese. In the past, we bought Provolone, there, and I’m sure it was also Primo Taglio. It tasted like some kind of freak of nature, like 25% old Provolone + 75% extra-smelly Swiss. It even had holes — some of them pretty big, like domestic Swiss. I tried to eat it, because I like Provolone, and I like Swiss, but that stuff was disgusting!

Anyways, I highly recommend not buying Primo Taglio cheese from the Safeway deli. Yuck! Buy some pre-packaged/sliced Kraft or Sargento cheese from the regular cheese aisle instead, or buy your cheese elsewhere!

This has been boggling my mind for years, now. It’s interesting and rather disgusting to see the bathroom behavior of many adults in the workplace. Is flushing the toilet really going to make you late for an important meeting? If the client you’re meeting with had a choice, do you think they would rather shake your unwashed hand, or have you arrive in the conference room 30 seconds later? I just don’t understand.

Yesterday, as I was leaving the bathroom, I saw 2 unflushed urinals. It took me less than 2 seconds to flush them both, on my way out the door. I suppose that someone else’s 1 second must be much more valuable than mine, though. Why should they have to do it? Someone else will definitely do it eventually, right?

Sometimes, even if I’m standing there washing my hands, I still see people not flush and/or not wash their hands. If I was going to be lazy and follow the above-mentioned motto: “Someone else will definitely do it eventually,” I would at least make sure nobody was looking!

The reason the title of this post mentions executives is because all kinds of people exhibit this behavior. From maintenance guys, to interns, to all levels of management… My 6-year-old has flushed and washed his hands for years, now. Why can’t they?! I’ve witnessed two different CEO’s over the past 7 years (at different companies, not my current employer!) blatantly skip the handwashing, despite the presence of myself and sometimes other people as well. Have they no shame? Are they intentionally trying to show us lowly workers that they are much too important/busy to deal with such petty tasks?

These people are the reason I feel compelled to flush with my foot, and open doors with a paper towel. But mysophobia is a whole can of worms in and of itself, so I’ll save that for another day.