Sunday, October 10, 2010

killing bugs

      This is a topic I've been meaning to blog about for about six months, since I moved into my new place.  My room is in the basement--its nice, fully finished, half bath, some windows.  Its just that bugs from the outside can somewhat easily come in--and being in the basement, I've had a bunch of visitors, mainly in the arachnid and blattaria families.  At first I felt bad killing these bugs--they were more plentiful in the spring with the change of seasons.  I became a ruthless bug killer.  I do always say a little prayer when I kill them, and pray that they skip many lifetimes and come back as a cute puppy!

      But still, with SO much bug killing, I can't help but feel a little bad.  These little spiders are kind of cute, and like to build webs in this one corner of my bathroom.  I let one chill for a while until the web had expanded and I got caught in it.  Sometimes its easy to catch them and take them outside.  Other times its a show-down, especially with those fast silverfish, and I usually win with a definitive "sat nam!"(which I say when I kill them).

    So my sister, who is in school for wildlife ecology (I think?) is taking a bug class, and since its starting to get cold in upstate NY, she asked me if I could kill and collect some bugs for her.   Funny she should ask, right?  She explained the method of execution---catch them in a net, put them in the "kill jar".  A kill jar consists of a jar with a lid, with a cotton ball soaked in nail polish remover to asphyxiate the insect.  Then I move the bug to another jar with ethyl alcohol to keep it fresh.   How many bugs does she want me to kill---oh about 20, if I can, she said.  I got my first catch this weekend---it was an injured silverfish, so it was pretty easy to lure into my jar of death.  It feels slightly more cruel to let it die a noxious death rather than just smash it.  But being a good sister, I will comply and pray for many fortuitous future lifetimes for the victims.

    Ahhhh, Sat nam, sat siri akal, my little crawly friends.....