I'm glad I make SOMEONE laugh!!! Believe me, the other night when I saw that big brown thing with all it's legs, sitting on my faucet, I was not laughing. I'm just curious as to exactly what happened to my brain, because as I was brushing my teeth, my mind was elsewhere and as soon as I spotted Mr. Waterbug sitting on my faucet, all I saw was the bug. It's like my eyes zoomed into him and everything else went out of focus.

I have never had that happen to me in my entire life. I mean, we have all seen bugs, here and there, on the floor, (I have a white ceramic tile floor) and believe me, when you walk into the living room from the outside and you see something black on the floor, well, you know it's not something that was there when you left the house.

This only happened about 15 years ago when we first moved in. There's a basement underneath my house and it was not finished. Well, I started to get waterbugs. I told my landlord he better spray. He did and that was that.

But the best was when they finished the whole basement and a nice couple in their late 70's (who do not speak a word of english), moved in around 5 years ago. Now, they are both 80 or 81. He just learned how to use a dsl line (guess who installed it for them) so we have a very nice relationship. So one day, in the front of my house, near the radiator, I kept seeing ants. Every day, there would be two or three ants. I would tell Alan, "we have an infestation" and he would burst out laughing and say "Melody, 3 or 4 ants is not an infestation" and I would reply "when it happens every day, it's an infestation. So I couldn't figure out where they were coming from. I sprayed the outside window sill. I sprayed inside the radiator, etc.

So I said to myself "go downstairs and check right underneath this radiator. So I got this special bug spray with a long thin nozzle (that you can stick into crevices". I go and knock on their door and they smile and welcome me. I explained in italian that I have ants and I want to check where they might be coming in. Now this whole conversation is in italian and I'm not too familiar with the word ANT in italian so I just show them the bug spray can and point to the bug.

She understood and took me into the back of her basement, which is underneath the front of my house. Well, what do you think stared me in the face??? She has a supply room in the back of her basement that was never pannelled or finished. The whole other part of the basement has been wood panneled. But in this supply room is the original foundation of the house, the bricks, the dirt, etc. And this is directly underneath the front of my living room.

So I'm looking around and sure enough I see some ants on the bricks. I excitedly point them out to her, expecting her to do an OH MY GOD moment. She does not. She just says "oh, formiga" (I gather that is ant in italian). And she picks it up and it's in her hand. I thought she was absolutely nuts but she's smiling and saying to me "this little thing bothers you?"

jeez........ So I just take my trusty can of spray and went into every nook and cranny and crevice. I sprayed the corners. I sprayed up into the ceiling (which was the bottom of my radiator) She never goes into this room. It's a storage room.

So I did what I had to do, she's all smiles, she killed the stupid ant that was in her hand, I went upstairs. I sealed off the radiator with plastic, sealing up all edges, so nothing could come into my house.

So years later, what do I see in my bathroom?? Mr. Waterbug.

Let me tell you, he's one lonely Waterbug. He's never seeing his family again.

Why the heck were they created anyway???

ick!!!!!

melody