Sun 20 Apr 2008
Buggin’ Out
Posted by Liza under Personal
We have been engaged in an ongoing and icky battle against some kind of teeny little grain-invading bugs.
First, they invaded just one cabinet. We moved things like rice and pasta out. Then we found it in the next cabinet. In a days-home-from-the-grocery-store box of corn bread mix. We moved and dumped stuff and lived with some chaos while we were busy traveling, and discussed possible solutions.
On Thursday night, I was eating a cracker from yet another cabinet, when I noticed a bug in my book. Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh!!!!!!!!! I don’t think I ate any; when I went to look, there weren’t a lot in the bag with the crackers. But still, unbelievably disgusting.
So Friday at lunch, I went to Ikea and bought a bunch of glass jars with silicone sealed lids.
And the bug guy came. He explained to Jill that these particular bugs probably came into our house from an infected container of food, not through the walls or the outdoors.
Saturday, I purged all of the food cabinets, dumping everything not in a plastic sealed container, jar, or can. And I scrubbed every inch of the cabinets. It made me think of the massive kitchen cleaning projects my Jewish friends and family members took on this week in preparation for Passover. I was definitely getting rid of all the crumbs and leavening.
Everything is re-arranged, re-organized, clean, and well-sealed. I need to acquire some more of the medium sized jars, and replenish my stock of things like pasta and oatmeal.
However, the number one priority is to correct my largest strategic error. Cookies cannot be stored in a clear glass container that sits on the countertop, unless I’m willing to have the “we don’t have cookies for breakfast” fight with Noah every morning. Which I am not.
To those of you observing Passover this week, Zissen Pesach to you all!





April 20th, 2008 at 1:06 pm
SO. UNBELIEVABLY. GROSS.
April 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
The Passover cleaning has a lot going for it from the season change, bug abundance, etc point of view. I went through the everything-in-plastic/glass problem when bugs invaded rice, produced flying bugs and got out of the rice bag, and took over the cabinet. Anna’s right. Unbelievably gross!!
Cookies for breakfast sounds good to me.
Noah and I will have to talk. Oatmeal/raisin, right?
April 20th, 2008 at 9:56 pm
The Passover cleaning has a lot going for it from the season change, bug abundance, etc point of view. I went through the everything-in-plastic/glass problem when bugs invaded rice, produced flying bugs and got out of the rice bag, and took over the cabinet. Anna’s right. Unbelievably gross!!
Cookies for breakfast sounds good to me.
Noah and I will have to talk. Oatmeal/raisin, right?
April 21st, 2008 at 10:28 am
Ack!! I have to go throw up now!
April 21st, 2008 at 8:14 pm
We’re having our annual spring battle with ants. And had to move crackers from top of refrigerator to inside a tall cabinet or we have the crackers for every meal debate.
Solidarity.
And don’t worry about the cracker. Protein.
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:15 am
Had that problem a few years ago - finally traced the source to box of baking mix. Once I had the problem, I observed these little critters for awhile - what they do is crawl off the shelves onto the walls up to the ceiling of the pantry and then just let go from the ceiling and drop onto something else - it’s really quite amazing and it explains how they move around so quickly and why they are so hard to eradicate. They also chewed right through thin plastic (like ziploc bags), cardboard, and waxed bags.
April 29th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
You know, I WONDER if the insane cleaning increased in the Spring Season because of those damn bugs? I know that growing up, we always got them, and would just chuck out the buggy bits - yeah, GROSS!
Pesach was lovely, but I’m SO happy to have grains agaiN!