Today, I was busy trying to learn how to put a Joomla site together (whew, steep learning curve for me), and as usual, when I’m not ‘getting’ a thing right away, my mind tends to wander. So it wandered to insects and PETA, Barack Obama and my life. Hang in there, I’m about to explain.
It was probably around 2 or 3pm when the quiet of my office was disturbed by a buzzing sound. I need new windows or something – putty – in this 65 yead old house. I’d been keeping things really quiet around here so I could study, and hopefully absorb, the various Joomla tutorials. I mean, I’ve got a couple of sites to get up already, and I’m two weeks behind. There was no tv noise, no radio, and my normally quiet neighborhood stayed that way. Along comes this buzz. Bzzzz…bzzzz… I noticed it right away. I looked around for my swatter, but couldn’t find it. The buzzing was getting louder, the insect was getting closer to me, and just as it was dawning on me that this bug had a hefty voice for a fly, I realized it was a wasp. Well, see, that takes a totally different set of weapons. I jumped up, shut the office door so it wouldn’t get out, and ran to the kitchen looking for my one-shot wasp killer.
Couldn’t find it, so I grabbed some other kind of spray – Windex? I ran back to my office with resolve to do some serious damage; it only took seconds for the enemy to reappear…bzzz…bzzz. I sprayed it. Nothing. I sprayed again. It seemed dazed, but not dying. I already knew this faux-insecticide wasn’t going to do the job, but I had hoped. I rolled up a magazine and decided to do battle. Fortunately for me, it landed on the window blinds and slipped between them and the window. I did battle. I swiftly cut the air with my rolled up magazine. I was prepared to sacrifice the $5 blinds to get this monster. I kept batting at it. It got trapped even deeper near the sill of the window. I got that useless bug spray and soaked it. I smashed it. I twisted the magazine on top of it. Finally, it was on its back with one leg lifted in the air. The leg trembled a second or two, and then collapsed. I won. And I felt good.
Then I got to thinking about PETA and how they had come out of their closets to condemn Barack Obama for killing a fly on national tv. A nasty, feces eating, germ-spreading fly. I had to laugh. Actually it was one of those laughs that you’d hear in a halloween spook house –haaa, haaa, heh, heh, heh. If someone had filmed how I went after that wasp, PETA would probably be parked outside my door with posters of big-eyed bugs pleading for mercy.
After the wasp murder, I got back to work trying to figure out Joomla. I did manage to come to grips with a couple of concepts, which was great, but that only led to other perplexing issues. Meanwhile, as I was straining at the computer screen trying to read yet another tutorial – another buzz. Geezz…there are no windows opened. Where in the hezell are these creatures coming from? The buzz was decidely higher pitched, and I correctly deduced that it was a fly. Now flies can be troublesome. Here it had a whole house to explore, but it wanted to be where I was, where my head was to be exact. I picked up my magazine and waited. One thing I’ve learned about flies is that they fly faster than I can swat, but they get tired. I could either tire myself how trying to chase it, or I could wait it out. I’m a patient person.
Sure enough, the fly went toward the window. Must be the light. There must be some sort of irony here. Humans go toward the light after death, supposedly. These creepy fliers go toward it before death. It didn’t take long for me to corner the pesty bugger. It had gotten jammed up in one of the mullions. I re-rolled my magazine so that it would have more of a pointy end and began pressing away at that fly. I squished it. All over that part of the window. (I’ll clean that later…kinda grossed out right now). Another victory!
*sigh* — what a life. LOL. I was so taken by my adventure that I had to write about it. That’s been my day – struggling with Joomla, killing bugs, and risking the wrath of PETA. I know the bugs won’t stop , but maybe Joomla and PETA will give me a break.
Probably not.
