[Note: You can skip the next 6 paragraphs or so to the mildly amusing anecdote if you don’t like my seemingly endless diatribes. If you don’t like my mildly amusing anecdotes either, you can jump right to the final 4 or 5 paragraphs and enjoy my grandiose moralizing.]
When I bought my scooter last March, a lot of people asked about it. What kind is it? Is it fast? What kind of mileage do you get? Where’s the clutch? Can I ride it? (answers: “a Genuine Buddy”, “60-65 mph on a straightaway”, “90-ish mpg”, “it’s a continuous clutch—just twist and go”, and “no.”).
(a photograph of my erstwhile office)
But the best question has been, “Why did you buy that scooter and not some other kind?” I’ve mostly handwaved my way through that question with something like “I researched it for two years” yadda, yadda, yadda. It’s true that other people who have owned multiple scooters really like it, and that influenced me. There’s also the great support group and local service shop. But every major brand has its loyal following: these reasons are not completely unique to my scooter.
Not-China
In reality, you’re fairly safe with any scooter from not-China: Kymco, Honda, Yamaha, Genuine, Sym, Lambretta, Bajaj, etc. These are all good brands that have been around for a long time. The Chinese scooters you see for sale on every other corner of major thoroughfares are what the cognoscenti call “disposable scooters.” They usually offer 90 day warranties, which I’m told you’re lucky to make it through without incident. If you go to any scooter shop that’s been around for more than a year or two, you’ll find dozens of these sub-$1000 disposables in the junkyard behind the shop and none for sale in the shop itself.
The owners and mechanics of good scooter shops will tell you what the Chinese scooters are made of: $%*#@! In layman’s terms, this means they’re made of inexpensive plastic parts and poor quality, brittle metals that are not designed to last long under heat or stress. They’re the scooter equivalent pressboard furniture: it may do just fine for you if you don’t move it far or often. And keep it out of the rain.
[I’m not bagging on China. I love China (sometimes). Most of the nice things I own were assembled in or have parts from China. But Chinese-made scooters are terrible. Ride a few of them and then ride something from the list above and you’ll see what I mean. Talk to scooter mechanics, ask around. There’s a reason they’re so cheap.]
Another reason I bought a Buddy was the 2 year warranty and roadside assistance (at no extra cost). I always thought roadside assistance was for sissies. I’d never needed it for my car (I somehow always managed to find a phone and call someone), but today I was proven wrong. I am proud to say that roadside assistance is awesome.
Story time: gather ‘round!
I’m cruising north on Geneva Road this afternoon. A dump truck in the left lane and an 18-wheeler ahead of me in the right lane. The truck in my lane is drifting occasionally into the shoulder and stirring up a lot of dust and gravel. My face is being pelted with little objects, so I start to slow a little and BAM and then rat-tat-tat-tat-tat over and over. Something is making a terrible noise in my rear wheel. I slow down and pull off the road. The rat-tat-tat stops, but I dismount to see what’s going on.
Protruding from the rear tire is about a half-inch of a rusty nail. Crud. Air is already hissing from the tire, so I pull the whole thing out. Three-freaking-inches of nail. It was nearly all the way in. Crud. I think I can make it another quarter mile—maybe.
I turn on the hazard blinkers and creep along the shoulder until I get to the next gas station. I can feel the rear tire is completely flat before I get there, so I walk it from the curb to the building and park it on the sidewalk in front of the store. A nice guy on a skateboard mentions a scooter shop nearby (which isn’t there anymore actually, but he didn’t know that, so I just thanked him). We chat a little bit. Then I remember a month or so ago getting my roadside assistance card in the mail:
I call the number, and a pleasant voice asks, “Are you in a safe location?” Sweet. “You bet I am.”
In another minute she’s asked for my policy number and verified all of my information. She asks for my location and where I want it towed. I walk into the air-conditioned convenience store to get out of the 90°+ heat. The guy with the skateboard is charging his cell phone from an outlet behind the garbage can. “Things ok?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “I remembered I have roadside assistance.”
“Awesome!” he says. Then he turns away to make a call now that he’s got some juice in his phone.
15 minutes later and the tow truck is there. I sign a paper saying that Larry’s Towing has my scooter. In 30 minutes the truck is on its way to The Scooter Lounge (“the best scooter shop in the universe!”). No charge for any of this—it’s all part of the package. For 2 years. It also covers car rental, but I don’t need that today (I’m hanging out at the gas station’s convenience store writing this until my wife picks me up).
Back to quality
But this essay isn’t really about scooters and flat tires. It’s about quality. There are companies that care first about what they do, and there are companies that care first about making money. Some folks think that you can do the latter without doing the former, and I think in the short term they’re often right: you can fool some of the people some of the time.
While most people care about quality in something, whether it’s the TV shows they watch or the beer they drink, many people don’t seem to care about quality in most things. They’re going to buy the cheapest things over and over, rather than wait and save up for something better. It just doesn’t matter to them.
I don’t know if there’s any correlation between people who don’t care about using quality things and people who don’t care about creating quality things (or doing quality work) but I know that people who care about making quality almost universally appreciate it in the things they use themselves: their cars, homes, food, clothing, music, furniture, plumbing, computers, software, tools, and even scooters.
This is not to say that everything we have must be the best. We make do with many things and budget constraints often force us to temper what’s important to us. But the things that are important should be of adequate quality to give satisfaction.
It’s also important to keep in mind that tastes change over time, often for the better: what was satisfying to you at one time may not satisfy you later on (e.g., making dough by hand used to be great, but a Bosch makes making bread oh-so-much more fun). Having quality nearby makes making more quality enjoyable.
posted on Wed, 22 Jul 2009 at 23:48 | permanent link | view comments
Wherein I give thanks to Walmart and a fire fighter
Last night I was working on my scooter and realized that I had no good way to extract the gear oil from the case. All the scooter forums I’ve visited recommend getting some kind of irrigation syringe or something to extract the oil with.
So I went to Walmart to look for an irrigation syringe so I could extract and inject new gear oil into my scooter. I looked around a little and must have appeared pretty lost. An employee named Ben came up to me and asked if he could help me. I told him I was looking for something like a large syringe or turkey baster or something that I could extract gear oil with.
He took me to the turkey basters, but on the way he said, “I don’t think this is going to work, but I have another idea.” We looked at the basters and just as he thought they would have taken forever to get the job done. He said, “Come with me a minute.” I followed him back to the sporting goods area. He got on the phone, “John? Ben. Look, I’ve got a buddy who’s trying to get some gear oil out of a chain case. Do you have any large syringes with you? Great. Look, I’m going to send him over, will you set him up? Thanks.”
Then he turned to me and said, I’m a fire fighter with (redacted) City. Do you know where the fire station is? Then he explained to me how to get there. “My friend John will be there in 20 minutes and he’ll get you what you need.”
I arrived, waited about 5 minutes and a fire truck pulls into the garage. I see a man through the garage window who holds up a finger to indicate “just a sec.” He appears a few moments later holding out a 60ml syringe, “You Ben’s friend?” I gave him a big smile and thanked him, but it felt entirely inadequate. When I got home I called the Walmart to thank Ben, but I couldn’t get anyone in sporting goods to pick up the phone. Anyway, Ben, thanks again.
Whatever mixed feelings I have about civil servants and government waste are temporarily suspended because of your genuine concern for me and for supplying me with a 50 cent irrigation syringe that I couldn’t find anywhere else. You rock.
posted on Sun, 24 May 2009 at 11:01 | permanent link | view comments
[Author’s note: this was written for a group of friends for this year’s “scary story reading night”. Best served with regular cadence and little dynamics, and, as always, in a slightly darkened room.]
Do not be surprised if while on an autumn trip to western New Jersey you are tired and it is late when you pull into a particular small colonial town. Do not be surprised if you find hotel after hotel completely full as you slowly make your way down the main road. Do not be surprised to hear the sad tale of a young girl who drowned 200 years ago on this night in the small river that runs by here, and do not be surprised to learn that the only hotel in town with vacancy is built upon the banks of this river in the very spot where she drowned.
And after you have undressed and are drifting off to sleep, do not be surprised to hear faint cries for help on the cool breeze. Do not be surprised if, after closing your windows and going back to sleep, you hear your doorknob turn and the door quietly swing on its well-oiled hinges. Do not be surprised when you start and turn on the light to find…nothing. Do not be surprised when you return to your bed and lie awake in the darkness with your heart racing to smell the cold, watery scent of the river, even though all your windows are closed.
Finally, and because you can fight sleep no longer and so drift off once more in your warm dry bed, do not be surprised, in the dead of night, to feel a cold, wet, delicate hand grasping your bare foot.
Sweet dreams!
posted on Thu, 16 Oct 2008 at 08:48 | permanent link | view comments
Here is a visual summary of last weekend’s overnighter.
Also, a scary story I wrote last year.
Of corn dogs and microwave ovens
[Early November 2007] Two programmers were playing foosball in the Bluehost break room. One of them, whom I’ll call “Mitch” was losing badly to the other whom I’ll call “me”. In walks someone I’ll call “Brittina” from technical support. She looks hungry.
She pulls a corn dog from the freezer and looks at it for a while.
“How long do you cook these for?” she asks us.
Mitch, in all sincerity and without turning from our game says, “About six minutes.”
“I usually put mine in for five and a half,” I add.
“Hm. That seems a bit long.” She puts the corn dog into the oven and closes the door. We hear the beeping of the buttons, and then the whir of the motor inside. Brittina walks away.
After about three minutes the odor is starting to affect our playing, so Mitch goes over to the oven and removes the extremely well-done (slightly blackened) corn dog and throws it in the garbage. There were still two minutes left on the microwave timer.
In a flash of brilliance, he takes a new completely frozen corn dog and puts it in the microwave just where the other one was and resets the microwave timer. We continue our game of foosball.
A short while later, Brittina walks in and goes over to the microwave oven. After the door opens we hear her say, “This thing is hardly cooked!” and starts it up again. She continues to putter around in the break room, but our game is finished so we leave.
About a quarter of an hour later, I get an instant message on the office network from another programmer named Rob: “[broadcast] I think your corn dog is about done.”
Apparently, Rob had gone into the break room to find the microwave oven emitting thick, dark smoke. He turned it off and opened it to find what was once a corn dog, now completely charred and still engulfed in flames.
By now, the entire floor is smelling pretty bad. Mitch saunters over to Brittina’s desk and says “What’s that smell?” She hears him and says, “It wasn’t me! Mine hardly cooked at all in that broken microwave.”
I guess ten minutes is plenty of time for a nice well-done corn doggy after all. Even in a “broken” microwave. Tee-hee!
In which we survive a night camping without sleeping bags
At two o’clock this morning Ashton wakes me up.
“Dad,” he says quietly. “Dad, I think I’m cold. You told me to wake you up if I got cold.” So I did. I look at him through my blurry eyes and ask if he has any extra layers of clothing on.
“I have a flannel shirt on.”
“When did you put that on?”
“About 15 minutes ago.”
“You’re not going to get warm tonight like that,” I gently scold. I can tell by the tone of his voice that the core of his body is cold and without intervention he will shiver for the rest of the night. Preston is sleeping like a rock next to me on the air mattress. I carefully unfold his bedroll and spread it open for Ashton to climb in. Once he’s in, I refold the blankets over both of them and then take the two blankets Ashton had been using and lay them on top. Over that, I drape two of my jackets over their upper bodies.
Preston does not stir at all during this time, and shortly afterward Ashton also falls asleep warm and sound. If I had brought the sleeping bags we wouldn’t have had this situation. But I didn’t bring them and I’ll tell you the reasons why.
I wanted the boys to understand that their own safety and comfort is in their own hands. When they’re out on their own in a few years, Mom and Dad will not be there to fix all their mistakes and save them from the consequences of their neglect, lack of foresight, or plain old forgetfulness. They have to be careful.
The second reason I didn’t bring the sleeping bags was to show Ana that she doesn’t need to worry about us when we’re going camping, especially for a brief overnighter in late spring. I wanted her to understand that in the contest of Wiersdorf Man versus Nature, Wiersdorf Man will always come off the victor because Wiersdorf Man is resourceful, cunning, and able to adapt to unforeseen situations and circumstances.
But the primary reason that I didn’t bring the sleeping bags is really the same reason that I have written this elaborate description of our adventure, and that is that I wanted to distract from the fact that I just forgot to grab them as I ran out the door.
When I was a young boy of about 11 years, I spent a summer with my great-aunt and uncle in Weber Canyon near Hidden Lake. I fished the lake and hiked around the hills, as well as helped out with chores and repairs around the house. Fall came early that year; by the second week of August all of the aspens on our side of the canyon had turned bright yellow, the maples deep red. By the next week, my last week at Hidden Lake, most of the leaves had fallen, leaving the trees tall and barren.
Across the canyon, I noticed, most of the maples still had their red leaves. I wanted to get to know this area before I left, so I asked my great Uncle Reed, “Can I go across the canyon today, Uncle Reed?” Uncle Reed looked up from his work, looked at me, then across the canyon, then back at me.
“You want to go across the canyon, do ya? I suppose ye might go over there and look around the gravel pits a bit. No harm in that. But mind you, stay out of the west fork of Frazier Hollow. Aye, that’s a place to stay away from.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Just mind me, will ya? You’re better off sticking to the road and going north, or better yet, staying down low to the gravel pits. You got that?” I’d learned that the answer to that question was always “Yes”. Great Uncle Reed had been working in this area for nearly 60 years, and knew as much as anyone for interesting places to go, as well as places to stay away from, and he always had his reasons.
Aunt Ruth made me a lunch and told me to be back before dusk. I set off down the road, crossing the Weber and made my way to the highway. The walk down the highway was quiet; no cars rumbling along today to disturb the stillness. Even the river seemed subdued.
I made my way to the turn off to Frazier Hollow, and saw the gravel pits on my right. I spent the entire morning running around the pits, setting up targets and throwing rocks, digging, exploring small caves in the limestone above the quarry, and eating my lunch, but every now and then I’d look up the hollow into the maple groves and wonder what was up there.
As the afternoon wore on, I went down to the creek. A small trickle of water found its way down Frazier Hollow, but it pooled up in places deep enough to wade in up to my knees. I splashed around a bit in the icy water and decided it was time to walk up the dirt road to see what was up there. I was a bit chilled now because of the water and the dropping sun, so I set off at a brisk pace up the hill.
The road seemed to stretch on for miles, with deep red maple leaves along both sides of the road, as well as an occasional pine or small aspen stand. I reached a fork in the road; the fork going west looked rather neglected and overgrown with thistle and brush. I stayed on the main road going north, remembering the warning my Uncle gave me.
This north fork eventually connected with the Perdue Creek trail to the north and east, which I’d already explored earlier that summer. I recognized the trail and decided to go back, as the sun was just dropping behind the Mahogany Hills in the west. I was getting rather hungry now, probably missing dinner, I thought. As I descended once more into Frazier Hollow, I felt a chill once more as I came under the shadow of the hill.
Eventually, I reached the fork in the road again and, strangely, thought I smelled bread baking. I thought to myself that no harm could come if I walked a little way up this west fork of Frazier Hollow. Soon the scent of bread was gone, but I was still following the road, among the deep red maples and tall aspens.
In a moment, I thought I saw some movement out of the corner of my eye. I turned to look, but there was nothing. If you’ve ever been in the woods alone with an active imagination, you might begin to understand some of the feelings I began to have at that time. I know that my heart was racing, but the darkening woods were still and benign.
I turned off the trail to see if I could get more of a glimpse of whatever it might have been out there in the woods; my curiosity was just a bit stronger than my good judgement. I found a small footpath just off the road and began to walk it. In not more than 5 minutes, I began to smell baking bread again. Peering through the thick aspens, I saw a very small house. As I approached, I saw that it was a white house, simply built, with a short stone foundation, a bit of smoke coming from the chimney. As I approached, I could see that it seemed well-kept and the porch steps were solid as I climbed them.
“It must have been a dog or cat or something I saw returning home,” I thought to myself. I didn’t mean to pry, I was just curious what this small cottage was doing up here in the west fork of Frazier Hollow. I turned to leave the porch when I thought I heard a voice. The voice was indistinct—I couldn’t actually hear any words, but it was unmistakably a voice, and it seemed like it was asking a question. So I turned once more to look into the front door.
To my astonishment, the door was slightly ajar. I pushed it open, just an inch to look in. I could see nothing. The slant light coming from the sky cast only the faintest light. I opened the door fully and called out, but there was no answer. I entered the house, but there was no furnishings to speak of but a rug covering a worn floor and a small wooden chair against the bare, grey wall.
There was no fire or even ashes in the fireplace, though I know I saw and smelled smoke coming out of the chimney a few minutes earlier. I took a few steps more and found myself in a short hallway, one end at the kitchen, the other too dark to see. The kitchen looked as if someone had hastily left, a short table skewed away from the wall, and the matching chair to the one in the living room tipped over.
There was no smell of anything but dust and the small white antique oven was cold. I turned down the dark hallway which ended in a small bedroom with a single bed, and baby crib, and a short night stand—nothing more. I went back down the hallway once more, toward the living room, but as I passed the kitchen, I noticed that both chairs were now at the table, which was now tidy, and the living room was completely bare.
At this moment, my good sense took its rightful place above my curiosity and I got myself out of there as fast as I could run. I stumbled along the darkening trail until I found the road. There was just enough light for me to sprint down the dirt road, past the gravel pits and up to the highway once more. From here, there were enough lights along the road for me to find my way back to my Great Aunt and Uncle’s house.
I stammered some kind of apology and excuses for being late, which my Aunt seemed to accept completely. I could tell that Uncle Reed knew instantly where I’d been, but he didn’t say anything about it over supper. We ate quietly, and I wanted nothing more than to be warm up in my bed.
Uncle Reed came up as I was about to go to sleep.
“Uncle Reed,” I asked, “what is that place?”
“What place?”
“The little white house in the west fork of Frazier Hollow,” I replied. Uncle Reed looked thoughtful for a few minutes, then opened and closed his mouth a few times.
Finally he said, “Over a hundred years ago, a small family moved into the canyon. A husband, wife, and infant daughter. They cleared some land near a spring in Frazier Hollow and built a small house there and lived happily for several years. The husband was an excellent cook and made the best bread in the county, it was said. Soon, however, the husband was called to work in the mining camps in Park City at the end of summer for a period of time. While he was away, his wife and young child whom he loved dearly caught pneumonia and died. The husband was so grief stricken on his return that he burned his house to the ground and was never seen again. But some say that each year as the leaves begin to turn color, he comes home at dusk to bake a loaf bread for his family.”
posted on Wed, 03 Oct 2007 at 10:29 | permanent link | view comments
Original story told by S. E. Schlosser
Late in the 19th century, when Weber Canyon and the surrounding mountain ranges were little known to white settlers, a man by the name of Alistair Wilde homesteaded on the upper half of the canyon, and built a small shack for supplies next to a spring. Wilde herded sheep in the canyon.
Wilde would spend weeks at a time up in the canyon, moving his sheep around from slope to slope until late autumn, when he would come down out of the canyons and bring his sheep into the valley. One year, however, he was caught in a freak snowstorm that lasted for several days and was never heard from again.
Many years later, Alistair Wilde’s nephew Charles moved down from Canada to claim the homestead, which had been abandoned since Alistair’s presumed demise. He had purchased a new flock of sheep, and moved into Alistair’s shack.
One day as Charles was browsing the contents of the shack, he came across Alistair’s journal, which included this entry:
Wednesday, September 24, 1862—Last Saturday I had a most curious experience with an old Indian from Rhoades Valley [now known as Kamas] who calls himself Waranak. I was tending the sheep, up in the high draw to the south-east, below the lake, where I found him. I’ve seen him before on several occasions in the same area, and our exchanges have always been friendly. This time, however, he was decidedly serious and refused to engage in any kind of pleasant conversation. He told me of a creature called a “wendigo,” and warned me that winter would come much earlier this year, and that I should move down out of the mountains before it came.
As Charles read on in the journal, he learned that “wendigo” was an Indian word used to describe an evil winter spirit. It was enormously tall—taller and stronger than two bears standing, but was thin, white, and frail-looking, with its skin pulled tightly over its bones. Its eyes were black and pushed deep into its sockets. Its odor was of rottenness and decay. It made no sound but a hiss, and left no trace when it walked but bloody footprints.
Legend says that the wendigo is kept alive by eating human flesh, and is never satisfied. Worse than being eaten by a wendigo, the wendigo can take possession of a human body, and that man or woman or child then becomes a wendigo, first seeking out family members to feed upon. It is said that the wendigo is most alive and active in times of winter storm and famine, when man is at his weakest and most vulnerable.
The entry went on to mention that Alistair had a good laugh when Waranak had gone. He had never put stock into legends or myths and was barely religious himself. The idea of coming down early for winter was also bothersome, but he had learned to trust the natives’ sense of weather and decided that he would make preparations to leave in 10 days time. That was the final entry in his journal.
In time, Charles Wilde tore down the shack and replaced it with a sturdy little red cabin and a tin roof, the same one you can still see today. Charles herded his sheep in many of the same canyons and hollows that Alistair had. Over the years, Charles learned where the best spots were and how to get the sheep from one valley to the next with the least amount of trouble. He also noticed many trees that Alistair had carved his name into, and sometimes brief journal entries such as the date and weather, or mention of a cougar attack or bear sighting.
Charles always kept a rifle with him and a hunting knife for safety. One day in late autumn, just a day before Charles was ready to go back down to the valley for the winter, a freak snow storm hit hard and fast. If you’ve ever been in the Uintah mountains in late fall when a nor’wester comes in, you understand what kind of storm this is, dumping several feet of snow in a day, sometimes lasting for a week.
Charles cobbled a small shelter for himself, but was largely unprepared for a storm of this strength. His sheep scattered, Charles Wilde became hungry and desperate, and on the third day decided to venture out during a break in the storm to look for food.
He wandered in the direction he knew some sheep might have gone for protection, a small dark hollow to the north and east of where he was. As he entered the hollow, a chill came over him. Far above he could hear the wind slowly moving the treetops, but down below it was deathly still and cold. As he stepped into the silent hollow, he looked down and could see heavy, bloody footprints in the deep snow. As he backed away, he heard a hiss that was everywhere around him at once.
Charles Wilde crouched in the snow, just as a wind whipped up. Looking, waiting, remembering the word “wendigo” and what he had read in Alistair’s journal some years ago. Charles grabbed his rifle and cocked it.
Suddenly a snowbank just ahead of him exploded as a tree-like creature jumped out at him. It was gaunt and pale as death. It had no lips and long yellowing jagged teeth. Charles took aim with his rifle and shot true, but the bullet passed through the creature, making a bone-breaking sound.
The wendigo screamed and a burst of wind blew a curtain of snow between them. Charles knew he had just one more chance to live. He ducked behind a small fir tree and watched. He could not see the wendigo clearly but for its dark eye sockets, searching for him.
As the snow settled again, the wendigo turned and finally seeing Charles Wilde with its sharp eyes, made a lunge for him. As the wendigo bent down to grab him, Charles sprang out with both arms wide, and plunged his hunting knife deep into the eye sockets of the wendigo, again and again, each eye now gone and bleeding profusely. The horrid creature grasped and reeled but Charles held on tightly, stabbing, plunging until the wendigo collapsed.
Charles now stood back from the awful creature, covered in blood. As the creature gasped its last rattling breath, a mist came out of it, and as it did so, there lay the ancient, bent frame of bones and skin of Alistair Wilde.
I wish I could say that wendigos in the Uintah mountains were never heard of again, but that’s not the case.
[Note: This is a work of fiction. The author apologizes to any relatives of the Wilde family still living in the Kamas valley for any unintended offenses.]
Confessions of a Wasp-Hating Coward
The clean mountain air smelled of pine and aspen. 7 a.m. and I’m awake before anyone else in the cabin and can enjoy this little piece of heaven all by myself. But now I hear the buzzing.
Last week, my son and I came up to do a little camping up the draw to the east. He hasn’t been camping much other than our annual (give or take) church outing. My business trip had been cancelled for the following week, so I felt I should do something useful that weekend and spend some time with my oldest child.
We pack up our gear in complete haste, packing more than we need or will use, but making sure we have everything, including my new 1 gallon sprayer and the small bottle of insecticide I purchased last spring at our local farmers equipment store. In one hour after my camping trip announcement, we’re in the car and on the road. In another hour and a half we’re at the cabin ready to hike the half mile to the saddle. I leave the sprayer and insecticide in the trunk of the car.
The hike, the camp setup, the pine sap, the small campfire, the beef jerky and unequalled night sky, the uneven ground for sleeping—all this becomes a pleasant memory for me and the stuff of fantasy and stories for a lifetime for my son.
The next morning by 9 a.m. we’re back at the cabin putting our gear in the trunk of the car. The buzz of insects is everywhere, benign and lively. Now it is time to spray for ants.
The ants we have at the cabin are of the large carpenter ant variety. About a centimeter long (sometimes a bit more) and thick, hard, black bodies, they’re unnerving for me to even look at. When you crush them on a hard surface, they make a loud popping crunch. You cannot easily kill them on carpet because their bodies are so hard. We’ve seen more ants this year than in many years past. None of us are sure why—though we all guess it has something to do with the long wet spring and more rain and snow than we’ve seen in 10 years.
I unpack my new sprayer and assemble it according to the diagrams that were packed with it. I take out the insecticide. The bottle is labeled “For Pest Control Operators and Commercial Use Only”. “This morning I am a Pest Control Operator”, I think to myself. I read the many-paged label tucked away under a piece of tape on the front of the bottle. Carpenter ants need the maximum dose: 16 milliliters per gallon of water (it strikes me now that mixing metric with standard measurements is kind of an odd thing to do).
Through the whole cabin, I vacuum the corners where floor meets wall, open up all the windows, mix myself a gallon of insecticide, tie a rag around my nose and mouth, then go to work, flushing every nook and cranny with my mixture, knowing I’m using only the best insecticide available (according to the man who sold it to me, whom I do not know but whom I trust implicitly because he wore overalls). Now I’m done with the inside.
I mix up another batch for the outside. I spray the bottom 2 feet or so of the outside wall of the cabin. I spray the pilasters supporting the cabin where my brother and I saw a long chain of ants climbing up in the spring, disappearing into crevasses and secret entrances to the cabin. All contact points with the ground are sprayed. All support beams under the cabin—anything I can see where an ant might climb or hide gets a squirt of powerful goodness. I am the mighty Goliath against all insects here.
Ashton has been waiting patiently downstairs, then outside, while I spray. When it’s time to clean the sprayer, we go to the hose on the west side and rinse it three or four times. Ashton wants to use the nozzle on it, so I let him take it while I finish tidying up inside and closing the windows.
I call out each window as I close it, “Ahoy! Ahoy there!”—a little playful banter with my 9 year-old, who calls back “Ahoy!” We’re definitely not seafarers, but we do think we’re rugged outdoorsy types after this successful camping trip. Closing the bottom floor windows now, I call out “Ahoy!” and Ashton replies, “Whoa Dad, you gotta come see this wasps nest. It’s huge!”
Windows closed, cabin locked, I come around the north-west corner to see what he’s talking about. He points up and east to the master bedroom dormer, and there, nestled into the space between the overhanging gable and the north wall of the cabin, is a paper wasps nest, slightly larger than a basket ball. I’m looking into the sun now, listening to the omnipresent humming of insects, but I can see little black flying things enter and exit the shadowy space. There could be hundreds of wasps in there. We leave it but I vow to return and take it out, hating wasps since I was a teenager.
Now we’re here one week later with the whole family for a little R & R: Mom, oldest son, little sisters and baby brother. All quickly occupy themselves after we arrive: Mom unpacks food, children unpack toys, and Dad unpacks video camera (for posterity), sprayer and insecticide.
I put about a quart of water in my sprayer to see if the stream will reach the nest from the ground. I pressurize the sprayer tank and see how high the stream goes on the roof, maybe a few yards east of the nest to avoid arousing suspicion. Unfortunately the stream falls about 10 feet short from the ground where I am standing: I’m going to have to shoot from the master bedroom window.
Later that evening, when the nest becomes quiet, I put on a leather glove, then another on top of it, put on a heavy jacket, and wrap duct tape around my wrist to seal the opening. I remove the screen from the window so I can reach outside. I refill the sprayer, adding 16 milliliters of insecticide to the tank, pressurize it, then open the window.
My greatest fear is to be stung to death by wasps. I’ve been stung a number of times, the last one a year ago on my right ear, which swelled up for three days. My ear felt thick and rubbery, like a dried apricot, and grew about 50 percent. The pressure of the fluids made me want to puncture it to get some relief.
I think now about these wasps. Having watched them this afternoon up close, a line from The Lord of the Rings comes to me: “They are bred for a single purpose: to destroy the world of men.” I sense these are no ordinary wasps.
To assist me in my bravest mortal deed yet, I ask my wife Ana to help me stuff blankets and towels in the window, so that in case of attack, only my double-gloved hand and heavily shielded forearm will be exposed. I had considered what I would do if the entire nest swarmed my hand and refused to leave, but I couldn’t come up with anything good, so I just hoped for the best (i.e., escape scenarios that involved severing my arm at the window were ruled out, but only after long consideration).
Now I lift the window just a bit and thread the nozzle and grip through the gap to my gloved hand. Ana closes the window over my arm again and together we stuff the extra blanket and towel folds into the tiny gaps, checking with a flashlight for any holes. We’re good.
Pump the sprayer tank one more time for luck. Ana shines the flashlight onto the nest through the window and guides me as I squeeze the trigger. “A little higher. Now a little left. Good, it’s going right in the hole.” We do this until the tank is completely drained. We watch—no wasps are coming to kill me. We raise the window, quickly pull the blanket and towels in and slam it shut again. Success.
It is now the next morning at 7 a.m No one is yet awake besides me, so I move quietly in the cabin. When I get outside, the mountain air smells new and clean as it nearly always does. I walk down the steps toward the front of the cabin, the north side where the nest is. A tall blade of grass lightly brushes my right arm, just as some flying insect buzzes by. I jump backward and sprint up a stair or two. I am shaking hard inside my body.
Once more gathered courage comes, but in its own time. I proceed down the steps again, startled once more by the same tall blade of grass. This time I have the presence of mind to actually look at what is touching my arm, and I give myself a reassuring smile. I am still shaking inside.
I move to the front of the cabin, under the nest and look around. Dozens, maybe threescore or more large, black-bodied wasps lie in ruin on the ground. Most of them are still slightly moving, lying on their backs or sides, their egg-shaped abdomens pulsing and their gruesome little mouths chewing sideways. I feel that I have won, but a yellow jacket flies by, curious about what a human is doing up in the woods. I hear the buzz of all the other hornets, wasps, yellow jackets, bees, mosquitoes, horse- and deer-flies—I am aware of all of them at once. And then I run like a small child up the steps and quickly close the door behind me again.
posted on Wed, 30 Aug 2006 at 11:47 | permanent link | view comments