Bugs

I’m putting the final touches on dinner last evening (read that: taking the last of three grilled cheese sandwiches out of the frying pan) when, from literally out of nowhere, a medium sized daddy longlegs drops on to the counter in front of me. I quickly put that grilled cheese on the cutting board and take a swipe at the spider. I miss. He’s a quick little bugger! There’s only one escape route available to said spider and he takes it, leaping on to the cutting board, heading straight for my dinner. I take a couple of stabs at him with my finger, again. Miss. Miss. Now that bold little SOB is actually ON my dinner, so I sweep him off the sandwiches with the flat of my hand, surgical precision be damned. I succeeded in sweeping him off the cutting board back on to the counter from whence he came. He was terminated with extreme prejudice and the remains deposited in the trash.

Fifteen or 20 minutes later. Those sandwiches were good! As I’m clearing the table I look down on the cutting board to see what are clearly two tiny little legs amongst the remnant crumbs. Which, of course, raises the question: “How many spider legs did I actually eat?” After a brief “ewww” moment I realize this ain’t the first, or the last, time I’ll consume a bug, in whole or in parts. The government has standards for “acceptable” amounts of insect parts and other filth in our food, ya know. And here they are. I’m glad I didn’t have any fig newtons for dessert.

Which brings to mind another bug story. In the last installment of “Weird Scenes Inside the Gold Mine” I told you about my mid-70s trip to Ramasun Station in Thailand and associated events. During that trip I became very good friends with a young lady that worked in one of the local bars in Kho Kha. One evening after work I’m sitting at the bar, nursing a Singha and minding my business when my lady friend slides on to the stool next to mine. We exchange greetings, and she says: “I bring you present.” “Cool!” sez I.

She reaches into her (very large) purse and pulls out this little cage made out of woven palm fronds or something, about three inches in diameter by two inches high. She then opens the top of the grass cage and dumps out this VERY large beetle-looking insect on to the bar. The beetle is about the size of an Almond Joy piece, which is to say it’s a really big bug. “That’s nice,” I say. “What am I going to do with this?” “You eat!” she says. “You SHIT, too!” sez I. She looks at me in a mildly offended way, shrugs her shoulders, picks the bug up off the bar, and bites off the bug’s abdomen, and chews it up with exaggerated smiles of delight. I almost threw up.

It turns out she had offered me a Rice Bug, a particular form of beetle found in rice fields. This beetle eats rice, “processes” it, and stores the resulting paste in its large abdomen. A real Thai delicacy, so I’m told. Nonetheless, it was a day or two before I kissed her again.

Sometimes all you have to do is ask. I downloaded my credit card statement from Citi Bank’s web site yesterday, and as expected, I was socked with a $39.00 late fee plus $15.00 in interest. I use the “all-electronic” feature Citi offers, which is to say I pull my statements and make my payments on Citi’s web site. It’s a good system, and I like it. The downside is remembering to make the payment on time. Last month my payment was due on February 24^th, but you must initiate the transaction by 1:00 p.m. EST on or before the due date to be “on time.” I was six hours late last month. I hate paying interest, so I always pay my balance in full each month. And I detest late fees, they are a form of legal usury. So, I pick up the phone, dial Citi, get connected in short order to a customer service rep, explain the problem, and am immediately credited with both the late fee and the interest charges. Sometimes things actually work like you expect them to. It’s rare, I know, but it sure does make one feel good when it happens.

Now if I could just figure out who to ask to turn off the damned wind machine. Dubya, maybe? Rove? It’s semi-howling today at 39 mph steady and gusts of 47 mph. The advisory runs through 1800 hours today but begins again tomorrow morning. This will be four consecutive days… Aiiieee! Enough, already!