The Maryland Metamorphosis

Growing up in Maryland, we were plagued by big black water bugs. Shiny and slow, they ambled away from sudden light and scurried under refrigerators and stoves. They were so gross. One year they got so bad that all the neighbors were taking extreme measures to eliminate them. This including spraying, wrangling, roping, and of course the cheapest but crunchiest method, foot stamping. This sometimes happened inadvertently at night while stumbling, barefoot and blind, to the bathroom. The resulting skid and accompanying scream successfully woke the community for blocks around and led my father to join the fight and buy a bug bomb.

We all went to Hechinger where my sister and I were delighted to receive a chunk of 2x4 each. This is before home improvement stores got smart and installed candy aisles. (I'm not kidding. We got chunks of wood and nails and we were ECSTATIC.) While my father set the bomb, guaranteed to kill any insect within hailing distance, we industriously hammered the nails to our bits of lumber. Once the fogger was going full blast we were all herded out of the house. But when we returned home after the prescribed four hours the smell still loitered, and seemed worse in the bedrooms. It was so strong that we couldn’t sleep, so my father dragged our mattresses out into the living room, opened all the windows and set up a fan.

This seemed like an adventure to us. (Before you judge our pathetic joy, remember, this is before God invented the internet, cell phones, and cable. All he’d given us at this point was electricity and the wheel. A lucky few also received scraps of wood and nails.) We excitedly climbed under the covers, the scent of bug fog still drifting lightly around like some Arabian Nights dream. Gentle sleep descended.

The summer sun woke us, as usual, at the crack of daybreak. I rubbed my eyes and yawned as my sister threw off her covers. There was a short, electric pause and then her screams yanked me out of my sleepy bliss. Her entire small body was outlined in bugs, who’d crawled into the warmth of her bed to die. I pulled off my sheet to discover my own fan club, cuddled right up next to me. Lying on their backs, legs in the air, some still feebly kicking. I added a high soprano harmony part to my sister’s screeches. 

My dad was, of course, the first responder. He came blasting into the room (my mother a close second), assessed the situation and grabbed us each by the front of the shirts then airlifted us straight up out of the beds. I can’t even remember what happened next. My memory, clearly so good at recounting the hideous details, somehow stops short of recalling the extra ice cream, chocolate bars and perhaps even trip to the toy store with which we were most likely comforted. At least that’s how I’m going to remember it.