Andrea Mulder-Slater

by Andrea Mulder-Slater I am in the middle of doing battle with a flying insect. I don't know what it is, but I'm fairly certain an earwig had sex with a flying ant. I was just about to crawl into bed when I saw it, sitting nonchalantly on my bedside table - eying my pillow. Normally I would ask Geoff to deal with such things but the poor dear has been burning the candle at both ends with this whole house-building project. At this moment he is fast asleep, clutching a toy dinosaur placed carefully in his grasp by our daughter. Nothing says "Do Not Disturb"  quite like a toy dinosaur in the fist. So, I took matters into my own hands. I grabbed a magazine and with it, inadvertently removed one of the creature's legs. I say inadvertently because really, I was trying to murder the thing - not torture it. I have a conscience. So then it went all vigilante on me and hurled itself into my head. I turned the light on in the hopes that the brightness w...

by Andrea Mulder-Slater Anyone who knows me, knows that I am obsessed with bugs - and not in a good way. I refuse to camp, hike, bike -- or for that matter go outside, so as to avoid the creepy crawly little bastards. I suppose what I'm saying is, don't read this if you're squeamish about antannae, abdomens, thoraxes or mandibles. Consider yourself warned. ------- I have a thing about bugs. The thing is, I don't like them. No, actually I despise them. A lot. I come by this honestly. My father was the kind of man who meticulously sealed any and all cracks in our houses with a caulking gun (or 10 or 20). So fastidious was he, that there was no way any vermin (not tiny bug nor giant rat) could infiltrate our compounds. Me, I do my best. Once, when we were "under construction", I (after spotting an earwig) unleashed enough spray foam around a window frame that my bedroom wall started to buckle. Bugs know I hate them. They do. I know this ...