...with our exterminator, Dennis. And Jack. And Raysheen. Or Rayray as he likes us to call him.
Oh, where to begin?
Let's start with Baltimore. We live in a city built on a swamp. We never had bugs in Ohio. But as someone said to me years ago "When you build a city on a swamp in the mid Atlantic, its bound to happen."
Our problem was two-fold: ants, and these mother fucking spider crickets. Have you ever seen a spider cricket? Never saw them before we cam here, and Jesus, those mother fuckers scare the shit out me the first time I laid eyes on on one. Literally I screamed. That scared the shit out of the sogs, but think looks like a cross between a daddy long legs and cock roach. And when you squash them they god SPLAT!
"You've never seen a spider cricket," said a coworker. "First time I saw one wet myself. Those mother fuckers are fast son's of bitches. Shit. And they are all fucked up. God's insect answer to a platypus."
In any event, we had problems. Most 90 year old houses do have problems.
Maybe it is that the people before us, who were peace loving, never angry Quakers, and they knew about the bugs, but never did anything to combat any problem they had in the house. You know how they abhor violence. If a light switch went, they left it for fear of hurting the wiring. Evidently "friendly persuasion" and reason don't work on broken light switches, cracked plumbing lines or on insect infestations. They just put up with it all.
It quickly became apparent that everything from Bay leaves, to talc, to borax, to hedge apples, and every other natural way of getting rid of the bugs short of buying an aardvark wasn't working.
What we needed were chemicals. We tried Raid and Tero, but no luck. Clearly we needed to step up our game before it became an "issue".
So we shopped around, found a company both highly rated and affordable and they seemed nice enough, and the service visit did help. We thought once and done was it.
Wrong. At Christmas, the ants were back, swarming on the counter like a wave. So we called the guy again, and out comes his brother - a smallish, round man who looked like Danny DeVito, who was just as nice as the first guy, who laid down more chemicals and sure enough, the ants went away.
In the spring, the problem raised its ugly head again, so we called, and instead of the owner, they sent out "Kyle".
Unlike the owner, Kyle was more like Zeus.
And reader, Cookie couldn't speak.
Tall, ravishingly handsome, polite, helpful, and the owner of a body that could barely be contained by his shirt, or his pants. I don't know how the zipper on his fly could withstand the pressure that his package was putting on it.
Kyle treated the problem and as he drove away I breathlessly called the husband, because we keep nothing from one and other.
After fifteen minutes of me raving about Kyle awakening something in me - the horny housewife who yearns for an affair with the cabana boy - long dormant, the husband injected a "Really? He made you feel like Shelley Winter's in the
Chapman Report?"
Yup.
The following fall, here came those little six legged mother fuckers and I called for the exterminator and this time, there was no Kyle.
Instead, they sent me Rowkeyse, who said - after I nearly slaughtered it because I was drooling - "Nah, my mamma gave me that name. Everyone calls me Key." Key explained that Kyle was on his honeymoon so he was picking up his houses. Key was six foot six inches of delicious man, with lips that would have put Englebert Humperdinck to shame. And the man had hands that were an accurate portend - I hoped of what was in his pants.
"You see," Key started to explain, "An the cold weather blah blah blah..."
My eyes were transfixed by his body. I wondered about his nipples. Were the smallish and taut, or were broad, stretched by his magnificent pecs, or fleshy and...
"blah blah blah trying to find shelter."
Uh, huh.
Again, I let him do what I needed done to the house (no, not me) and when he came to me and said, "let's go in the dining room so I can show you something," I almost closed the curtains. Good thing I didn't.
Instead he laid out the bills for the last three calls and said his boss "wanted me to show these to you. Each time we're here, you are paying "X+1". Well, two times "X" is enough for an annual contract, and blah, blah, blah...."
I was transfixed by his beauty, his presence. This was a man who would be a firm, but gentle lover. I was his, if only in my mind, and this is a top who would have tumbled for Key. I was sunk. So I did the only thing I could do: I yielded to his logic.
And in fact, had we signed the contract, we would have saved the $99 house call fee. Duh.
"...blah, blah, and we would come out four times a year instead of the tree, plus any emergency calls in between are covered."
That dark chocolate god wanted to sell me a contract, and this savvy consumer who normally throws people out of the house for less said "Where do I sign?"
I mean, yes, from a money standpoint, it made sense. But four guaranteed visits from Kyle, or Key, even if it was only in the professional sense was well worth it to brighten my humdrum days.
My husband was a bit less thrilled, until I showed him the numbers and their promise that they would be here at the drop of a pin.
"Of course, you know, now they send the ugly exterminators."
I stopped fantasizing and came down to earth. It sounded like something I would fall for. And what a business model. Send in the gods with the killer good looks and the award winning personalities, get the contract signed, then send in the employees with "summer teeth and B.O. How diabolically brilliant.
Thankfully, over the last seven visits, Kyle, Key and a host of their coworkers have only gotten better.
There was Billy, a sun tanned man in his late thirties from Southern Virginia, salt and pepper hair, the bluest eyes and deepest dimples. "I think you have a paper wasp nest that could be a problem should that limb come down," was what he said, but what I heard was angels singing.
There was Rasheen, who Billy sent to take care of the wasp nest. "Make sure your windows are closed for the next couple days just in case someone comes looking for their home." Uh-huh. He had a million dollar chest with nipples I could latch onto, and a mega watt personality and smile.
And then is Jerry, late twenty something, ginger with freckles and shoulders and the most perfect ass I have ever seen. Jerry is asstastic. And he has a personalty that is so sweet, and eyes so green that he could tell me the house is about to crumble termites and I wouldn't care.
"I normally work in Howard County," he said the last time, "but I love coming here. You guys and the people next door and the woman across the street are just the nicest people."
So I asked Joannie who lives across the street what she thought of Jerry.
"You know, I hate the name Jerry, but on him, it's good. Even if he were named Nestor, he'd make it the sexiest name in the world. He's like that guy in the Diet Coke commercial," she said. "I work from home when Jerry is scheduled. That way, when he's spreading that stuff to kill the vermin outside, I can have him all to myself in my mind."
Billie, who lives on our other side is a commercial artist who works from home as well. She does illustrations for romance novels.
"I could make Jerry a star like Fabio. But when I am done with him he'd end up opening grocery stores, maybe get asked to appear on Dancing with The Stars. Or worse, a bit part on a Lifetime movie." She sipped some ice coffee and swirled around her mouth like a fine wine. "I couldn't ruin him like that. I hope his girlfriend is sweet and lovable and they they make lots of babies. So the world will be a better place."
Then she added "I want to hate her, whoever she is. But I couldn't do that to Jerry."
Today we had Dennis. Dennis, an Irish lad with a killer accent and the perfect narrow waist to broad shoulder ratio that puts every other man to shame. Dennis, I told my husband is the man I would marry if I weren't married. And as it happened, the husband was home today working in the yard. To date, he had never seen any of these guys. Today, he got an eye full of Dennis.
He got so smitten with Dennis that he turned off the core aeration machine, which we rented by the hour, to walk over and chat about bugs and vermin.
"Dennis told me," my husband said, "That there is an outbreak of rats over in
, but that he'd make sure we were taken care of. We talked about Ireland. His people are from County Roscommon, like my people."
As the husband went back out to his big honking yard machine there was a swagger in his step.
Its good to share interests with your mate. Even if its oogling at the hired men. Yup, neither of us can't wait to see some ants come this spring.
