We thought there was a tree root in between our floorboards.
For some reason, this didn’t bother us or seem odd. We lived in a beautiful old
house in Charleston, right on Hampton Park. As far as we were concerned, the
little rivets pushing up our floorboards were part of the charm. Look! A sweet
little tree has wandered into our living room! We started calling our upstairs
carriage house apartment the “tree house.” How sweet. Until it happened.
My best friend Stephie was visiting Memorial Day weekend,
and the Charleston weather was really showing off. It was already in the 90’s
and perfect beach weather, so we spent the day loving life out on Folly. We
returned home at the perfect time, a little summer shower had drifted over the
Peninsula and made for excellent post-beach napping conditions: a little snooze
to sleep off the sunburn.
I awoke from my slumber to the crying of one of my dogs. I
was very used to this sound as one of our two pups was incredibly prone to
high-pitch communication—something I had learned to ignore, making me a
candidate for doggie mother of the year. But, this time, the whine was from our
quiet dog—the Silent Bob to our lab mix’s obnoxious Jay. I slowly stirred from
my incredibly comfy nap position, a little something I like to call the
horizontal face plant, and noticed that my skin was crawling. I must not have
done a good enough job washing the sand off at the pier.
I tried to shake off the feeling and drift back into my
slumber, but the cries from my sweet, little dog turned more urgent. I was
suddenly struck with the notion that something was seriously wrong. That’s when
I opened my eyes.
There were bugs crawling all over me. They were flying
throughout my bedroom as if the black and white static screen of a television
had come to life, and I was standing in the middle of it. I ran into the
bathroom to jump in the shower to get them off of me, but as I threw back the
shower curtain, I was faced with even more bugs. I swear one looked me straight
in the eye. I turned and ran screaming into the room my Stephie was staying.
“Oh my GOD! BUGS! Bugs everywhere!”
“What?!” She sat up with a bolt. “Eww, oh my God, Bec.
They’re all over my pillow!”
“They’re termites! They’re swarming! We have to get out of
here!”
Armed with her concern for her pillow and my concern for
every single one of my worldly possessions as well as my home, we fought
valiantly through the chaotic dance of the mating air-vermin, swatting left and
right and, if my memory serves me correctly, exacting a roundhouse kick or two.
We really hauled some tush. But it didn’t matter, the cloud of sex-crazed termites
hung with us even after we thrust open the door and ran screaming down the
stairs. It looked a little like this:
I had managed to grab a suitcase and fill it with what
turned out to be a pile of my husband’s dirty clothes and numerous unmatched
socks, and I used it to usher my poor dogs as well as my best friend out the
only door at the far edge of the house. We, including the dogs, ran screaming
down the stairs into the night. I’m sure none of the neighbors noted the
commotion since we lived only two blocks from The Citadel and they were used to
this sort of shenanigans, but for us, well maybe just me and one of the dogs,
it was one of the most scarring experiences of our lives.
We sped away in my tiny but impressively powerful Nissan
Sentra, panting from sheer fear and the surprise cardio routine. I could still
feel the termites crawling all over me, which wasn’t entirely imaginative as
there were still some in my hair. I was terrified one was going to crawl into
my ear and hole up in the part of my brain where I stored my most valuable
cognitive information: state capitals and stupid movie quotes. Needless to say,
I was a little stressed.
We pulled up in front of my husband’s restaurant, and I
stayed outside with the dogs, shivering in the 90 degree heat, while my friend
went inside to retrieve him. I told him every horrible detail of what only
could be described as the “termite attack” as he stared at me with what I
thought was incredulation but turned out to be him just thinking I was bat-poop crazy. If it wasn’t for the
affirmation of Stephie, now toting a suspiciously pungent tropical drink, he
probably would have dismissed the experience entirely.
I threw my hands up in the air as I finished my tale: “So,
now we’re homeless! Our home has been taken over by a vicious termite offensive
and we have NOWHERE to go!”
“Wow,” Stephie said as she took a giant slurp of her drink,
“you’re really not handling this well.”
As it turns out, there was a fourteen-foot termite nest
between the floorboards of our apartment and the one below us. The spent the
entire fall and winter just gearing up for the geyser-like explosion that would
cause me to freak at the site of anything with the ability to crawl. I was just
sitting there, unknowing and vulnerable watching my Law and Order reruns while
they were below me, just bench pressing and feasting on some oak.
But, the real crazy thing is, we had been told that we had pest
control. However, after doing a lot of research in order to find out the answer
as to why I was “swarmed” and strongly considering setting up a support group,
I found out that the pest control company she employed were merely setting bait
traps outside the house, which, when not maintained, basically just feeds the
termites. You could tell they were taking the bait too because these things
looked corn-bred-and-fed. I almost bet money on one that strongly resembled a
past Triple Crown winner. Now, you can
bet I will always make sure to have whatever residence I live in inspected and
CHEMICALLY SPRAYED for termites. I simply cannot let my dogs live through that
horrific of an experience again.
No comments:
Post a Comment