The Bug Chain - Part 2 - The Orient

When I became a military spouse, I knew, without a doubt, that my normal was forever going to be changed.  Moving to weird places, accepting that the military would take a front seat in my marriage, and being an emotional Gumbi so that I could flex with every storm were things that I learned early on that I had to accept in order to thrive.

BUT BUGS?????

Man, was I in for it. I thought the mosquitoes in the Great White North were bad!  That was until we moved to the Orient.  I had never seen anything quite like my insectal adversary in the Orient before that move.  What I learned to live with while in the Orient would have sent me into a panic if they showed up in our home anywhere else.

Roaches.  

I mean HUGE roaches!  These nasty, disgusting, vile, little creatures were often 2 to 2 1/2 inches longs AND fat.  They were everywhere and cocky!  The idea that they came out at night was a lie.  They would nonchalantly waltz across the floor like they owned the place.  After a few months, I decided that I had moved into their home and it wasn't really my own.

To say that my engineer and I were absolutely disgusted with the infestation that we moved into doesn't even touch on the depth of nastiness that we felt concerning our home.  We were embarrassed beyond words concerning these repellant creatures that lived in our home.  I would dream of them at night, only to wake in a panic insistent on pulling all the blankets off the bed and shaking them.  I hated getting up in the night for fear of stepping on something.  House shoes became a must.  These gut wrenchingly foul things made my skin crawl.

We also had massive spiders...Wolf Spiders.  At first, these things were the stuff of nightmares: huge, hairy, and fast!  I smashed these invaders with everything I had until I learned from a friend of mine from Italy that they hunted the roaches!  From that moment on, I left 2 or 3 of these mammoth arachnids alone since we had a common enemy: the Roach.

Our roaches came into the house through every possible point of entry: drains, vents, cracks in the walls, under both the front and the back doors, and through the closed windows.  Like every other spouse on that base, I spent most of my life scrubbing our home.  All of our food was stored in the frig and freezer.  Ziplock bags and sealing containers were a must for my sanity concerning my family's food.  Counters scrubbed, stove wiped down, and oven clean, I really didn't have more that I could do.

There was one weapon that we had that I had NEVER considered....

Nutmeg.

Our Nutmeg LOVED our invaders.  With a vengeance, she spent her nights hunting and prowling through the house.  After a while, I made sure that EVERY door and cupboard was left open for her to stalk to her hearts desire.  I became accustomed to the various body parts that I would find in the morning.  Waking early, I tried hard to find them before my Angel could.  I was always able to tell what she was up for snacking on.  Crunchy or Chewy???  Dismemberment was a hobby of hers that made me eternally thankful that I was bigger than she was.  Scary to admit, but I love a sociopath!  Spiders, roaches, flying things...they were no match for her.  A few times I interrupted her entertainment just put the bug out of its misery!

It is sad to say that we actually got acclimated to our buggy situation.  Much like a frog in a pot of progressively heated water, we become numb to it all.  Still persisting in scrubbing the home, seeing a critter scurry by in my peripheral vision no longer sent chills down my spine.  In a sense, I honestly gave up claiming our home to be our own.

By the time we were to pack up, I was more than happy to get rid of the house filled with bugs.  I washed every bit of clothing and linen, bagging and sealing them in the massive Ziplock Storage Bags.  Systematically going through everything we owned, I prayed that whatever hitch hiker might try to join us would die in route.

Our Nutmeg???

Well, let's just say that our lovely lady gained a whopping two pounds during our two year in the Orient.  Concerned for her health, I had spoken to her vet about what I was supposed to do about it.  He smiled and told me that she would lose the extra weight as soon as the "snacks" were no longer in her diet and not to adjust her food.  He closed by saying that we were lucky to have been blessed by such a gifted hunter!