Buhgs

No one had been in the pool since last Monday, and we'd given it no attention other than refreshing chlorine tabs, so when I went out there yesterday, I was pleased to see it was looking pretty good. Nevertheless, I set myself up to vacuum and descended into the waters cooled on Saturday by GlobalWarmingNot, when it was 59º at 11:00 a.m., in Kansas, on July 12th, but let's not go there, lest I be tempted to begin naming all the people who should be living in prison -- rather than mansions -- with life sentences for treasonous acts and perjury. Whew! That was a long, rabbit trailing sentence. Buhgs. Stay on topic.

I was not long in the water when I was horrified to discover the pool was full of margarets. My apologies to anyone named Margaret, because that's a lovely name, and I'm sorry all over myself to borrow it for use in place of a word I can't force myself to type, and if I've lost anyone at this point, as much as it pains me, I will type the word larva, and that's the insect stage to which I'm referring. I'm talking hundreds of margarets. I could hardly believe I was staying in the water, but it was either that or dynamite the pool, the latter not being a reasonable option.

I quickly set aside the vacuum, grabbed the skimmer, and began the long, arduous, disgusting task of scooping margarets out of the pool, the entire time wondering if we'd not had enough chlorine in the water, yet thinking we surely must have, because they all appeared to be dead. Eventually, I thought I had them all and began vacuuming, stepping ever so gingerly and squeamishly around the pool and wondering if dead margarets sink at some point.

Some 30 or so minutes later, Charles came upon this scene, and I began telling him my woeful tale of sharing the pool with hundreds of margarets. He, being much more about science than I, began expressing his wonder that any buhg (other than mosquitos) would make deposits in water. Just doesn't happen. Well it happened here.

He was still considering this, when I mentioned the sparse, oddly colored debris I was vacuuming from the floor of the pool. "Oh, I know what that is," he said. "It's the pollen from Sid's corn. ...Wait a minute. Let me see one of those things." So I scooped a couple of margarets, which did seem to keep presenting themselves, in spite of my close inspection and best effort to remove them all.

"Those aren't margarets! They're the little pods off of corn tassels! They blew into the pool from Sid's corn."

Oh.

He stepped into the corn field and returned with a spike of margarets, still an orange-purple blend, because they hadn't been bleached by chlorinated pool water.

Oh.

Well, they sure looked like margarets to me.

It was some time before I recovered from the trauma of temporarily co-habitating with maragretnots. In fact, I may be permanently scarred, because Charles was to eventually tell me to stop calling them margarets. "It was corn!" And if I've scarred you by allowing you to think through several paragraphs that they were margarets, sobeit. We're supposed to share one another's burdens. Amen.

I joined Charles on the deck then, and before long he exclaimed, "Look! Look at this thing. It's so shiny." I turned to see a beetle he'd captured.

"Oh, I know. Those are in the pool all the time. Aren't they beautiful. ...Wait, let me get the camera." I usually take the camera to the pool with me. Ya nevuh know when something photo-worthy may occur -- like the appearance of a gilded beetle.

"Well, wait," Charles said. "Do they bite?"

"No, I don't think so. They're in the pool all the time."

"Well, hurry up."

I took my shot, then told him to let me get another, because I had no way of knowing whether or not I was capturing the beetle's gleaming glory. Indeed, I hadn't in the first photo. In the second, I caught the shine, but the camera focused on the apple tree, so it's blurry. (Some year, I'm going to have to read the camera manual.)


I'd no sooner clicked a second time, when he hollered, "OW!"

I gasped, and feeling like a heel for giving a false assurance that buhg wouldn't bite, I said, "Did it bite you!?"

Then came the sheepish response, "No, but I thought it was going to. It kinda felt like it was going to." Neither of us could figure out why he'd hollered ow, because he's never met an insect or critter that struck fear into him, and he'd experienced no pain, so we both got a great laugh out of his most odd outburst. I'm still chuckling over it today.



And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. ~Genesis 1:26