Darkness falls fast in the desert after the sun sets. Twilight doesn't linger. During the day, I imagine the little dudes snoring in their cozy nests under my kitchen countertop. I wash my dishes with an eye open but I feel pretty certain the kitchen is mine. Until dark.
In the evening (I imagine), the little eyes flutter open, the tiny mouths yawn, the little wings buzz, the skinny legs flex and stretch. I imagine the little dudes are eyeing the exits, which are entrances onto the vast stage of my kitchen counter. They probably poke each other: Who is willing to stick out an antenna? You go first. No, you go.
I don't think the little dudes drink blood, but I think of them as tiny vampires. They are fast and almost invisible if they pose in place. As soon as an audacious dude makes a move, my anxious eye spies it, my hand reaches for the spray bottle of rubbing alcohol, and in sixty seconds, the little dude is on its back, antennae wilted, tiny legs pistoning in the air.
I don't like killing things. I'm sure I'm going to hell. But my consolation is the little dudes will all get there before me, if I have anything to do with it. I keep my spray bottle near to hand the way some angry people tote their AR-47s. Anything that moves in my kitchen is fair game. I don't care what you are.
This apartment building was built in the mid-1970s, and I think the countertops are original to the 1960s. The architects got a good deal on this stuff, I'm guessing, most likely because it fails to fulfill all the performance obligations of a mediocre kitchen countertop. First, the white background is speckled with dark irregularly shaped and placed spots of various sizes, scattered tightly like a reverse field of stars. Some speckles might even be a little glittery, but most are some shade of dark gray, if you don't count the handful of light brown cigarette burns left by former tenants. What this means in terms of the battle raging for kitchen supremacy is that it looks like the countertops are teeming with bugs. (The speckled counters surround the bathroom sink too but I haven't seen any little dudes there yet. Not much to eat there, unless they get a hankering for Colgate.)
Second, the speckles aren't flat, they are just slightly raised, almost embossed into the surface, which I'm guessing is some sort of particle board, judging by how it is crumbling underneath the edges around the sink. Particle board and moisture are natural enemies, and moisture always wins. This slightly raised surface means I can never be sure the counters are clean, not without nuking them with bleach, which is really bad for the air quality in the Bat Cave. (Did I mention the Bat Cave has only one window?)
If I were to try to see the battle from the bugs point of view, I would say, wow, how lucky are we to live so close to a smorgasbord of aromas and flavors! Talk about the promised land. The embossed nature of the surface gives us good purchase for skittering. The plethora of crumbs and tidbits and drips left behind by a human with bad eyesight means some fine midnight brunches for us. And if the sneaky human flicks on the light and catches us manging around the stove, well, we can either run for our lives or freeze behind something and hope we don't get caught. How fun is that! It's a little dangerous at times—we lost Uncle Manny last week, and Junior Number Twelve hasn't been seen in a while. But what a life of luxury!
From my human point of view, I am constantly creeped out after dark. I didn't see any action for a few nights and naively thought I might have won the kitchen wars, but then last night I saw two full-sized dudes lurking around the so-called clean dishes, and I realize I'm fooling myself. You can't win this kind of war, not even if you raze the place to the ground. It's like I'm living on stage in an auditorium. During the day, the audience is snoozing, head to toe, spooning in their nests among their multitudes of eggs. As soon as darkness falls, every seat in the auditorium is filled. They are watching me with unblinking eyes, waiting for me to shut off the light. Soon they come creeping out of their hidey-holes to dance on the stage.
My eyes see the speckles on the kitchen counter, bug out, and kick my brain into fight or flight mode. I peer under things and between things, pointing a flashlight, pounding the counter. If I see something move, I launch a frenzied attack. I spray the bug and watch it kick until it expires, feeling just slightly sad and guilty. If it falls into a pile of diatomaceous earth, I let it lie there, covered in white dust, desiccating, a constant reminder to its brethren: This is what could happen to you. Each dead bug is my equivalent of a head on a pike. I don't think it is working as a deterrent, though, and it's really more like I don't want to clean up a bunch of little white-dusted corpses. It's just gross.
I'm starting the downsizing process again. I'm putting essentials in big see-through plastic bins. I know, plastic! Argh. Cardboard boxes are getting filled up with clutter and taken to the thrift store. Cardboard and clutter, both good hiding places for bugs, are now verboten. I'm getting as much up off the floor as I can. I moved the bed six inches from the wall and surrounded it with a dusting of diatomaceous earth. I sleep like a princess on an island.
While I'm washing dishes and listening to my refrigerator breathing like Darth Vader twenty hours a day, I'm reflecting on my current housing situation. I'm trying to make home not be a geographical place but more like a state of mind. I don't have experience with this. My sister the world traveler does, I think. She learned early how to pack light and settle loosely. Me, wherever I go, I'm always lugging a sewing machine, a power drill, a bunch of art supplies, and ton of other stuff . . . and that's after downsizing and moving to Tucson. I can pare down some more, but at some point, I will reach the dreaded moment where I must let go of all my security blankets and pack what is left into my car. I have until the end of next August to find my new state of mind.
