There are some who start their retirement long before they stop working. -Robert Half

Monday, January 26, 2009

Ladybugs.

If you're from Missouri, you know that every fall, there is basically an infestation of ladybugs. I'm not sure if they are real ladybugs, because they are yellowish, but we'll just say they are. When the weather starts getting cooler, it is not uncommon to find ladybugs covering your ceilings or dead and crunching under your footsteps. I think this is a new problem, however, because I don't remember it happening when I was younger. Probably global warming. Poor earth...
Anyway, the ladybugs don't really bother me, but my sister and Grammy really freak out about them. When my older brother and I were gone to college, my sis got to move up to the big room in the attic, complete with a walk-in closet and personal bathroom. This must have been the year the ladybugs started invading because I remember her complaining constantly about the ladybugs. She hates them. She says they smell bad.
Grammy hates them, too. One day at dinner, we were sitting there watching the ladybugs fly around the lights and Grammy said:
"All my friends say they are harmless, but I swear they bite me"
And then she sat there and glared at them.
Papa doesn't believe that they bite and he told her that, but she won't change her mind. She also gets really mad about gnats. One time she got a forward with all these tricks to fix any problem you have, and it told her to put out dishes of apple cider vinegar to kill the gnats; they like the smell and then they drown and meet their deaths.
That forward also said that if you put a dryer sheet in your pocket when you go outside, you won't get bit by mosquitoes. One day I tried it, but I'm not sure if it worked because I already had a lot of mosquito bites. Grammy told me I have to rub the dryer sheet all over my skin first. Grammy doesn't like dryer sheets, though, because another forward she got said that someone's dryer burnt up and set the house on fire because of the residue from dryer sheets. Apparently the filter was full of the dryer sheet gunk and it caused a fire.
Grammy hangs all of the laundry on the line outside, or in the basement if it is rainy/cold/really hot etc. When we lived in Colorado, we lived in Suburbia. Apparently, our community was regulated so you could only use certain colors of paint on your house and you had to check before you built anything and you couldn't have tree houses (I'm still a little bitter about that one...) Well, one time Grammy came out to visit and did her laundry and hung all of her underwear on the line in the backyard and some of our neighbors called the Suburb Cops, or whatever they are, and they called us and told us Grammy had to take her underwear off of the line or we would be fined. Isn't that insane? Grammy is good at laundry. Whenever I lived alone and did my own laundry, I would just throw everything in together and pour some soap in. Grammy seperates everything, washes them, dries them a little bit, hangs them on the line, and then irons them. Maybe she'll motivate me to at least sort my clothes...

4 comments:

  1. I think line dried clothes smell the best. I used to dry my sheets on the line just to get that smell. I live in Suburbia now and cannot use a line.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I didn't know we lived in suburbia...I must live in my own bubble. Who knew that there were regulations about a clothes line?! If we live in suburbia with suburb cops...we should call them on the neighbors who don't clothe their kids.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I hate lady bugs. You just wait till one pees on you. Then you'll hate them, too.

    ReplyDelete
  4. We haven’t had a problem with ladybugs at my house, but my parents get a ton of them. My dad always sucks them up with the vacuum cleaner hose and Riley stands there and laughs.

    Dixie also enjoys the ladybugs, she chases them and is fascinated.

    I dislike them...alot.

    ReplyDelete