Treatments

When I was in 3rd grade, I started a Save the Animals club and kicked out my mom when I caught her spraying ants. But my love for creatures of the insect variety ended shortly thereafter. Hence my declaring war on Miller Moths.

It should come as no surprise if you know my Dad. But for those of you who don't, I thought I'd enlighten you.

When bugs landed in our pool but were still alive, squirming to get out of the water and be free...well...we didn't free them. We didn't even kill the mercifully. We applied a "treatment." Treatments were different torture methods my dad and I devised. Like taking the net and trapping the bug under it at the bottom of the pool. Watching him search for an escape until he suffocated. Or putting him in a plastic Easter egg with water, and soaking it in the sun until the water boiled him to death. Or putting him in said egg with just a little water, and shaking the life out of him.

My dad and I also enjoyed gathering the fake lady bugs into an envelope until we had like, 50, and then dumping them in the toilet and watching them all swirl together to their doom.

So when I was complaining about bugs the other day and my co-worker said that camping in my parents' backyard this summer would be buggy, I had to laugh and say, "Oh no. Not in my dad's backyard."

No...he's got giant traps to catch the horseflies, so that problem is eradicated. He has this special garlic spray to spray around the perimeter of your campsite, and mosquitoes won't cross it. And after many years of our annual "burning of the worms" ceremony (where my dad took a blow torch to their nests in our trees), those worm nests won't come near our property.

It should be noted that before my dad bought the traps for the horseflies, he walked around the yard wearing a hat with a blue cup drenched in sticky bug-catching stuff on it. Because horseflies are drawn to the color blue. He wore it when he mowed the lawn, too. He looked ridiculous - but it was all in the name of trapping horseflies.

So if you're wondering where the gene comes from to wage war on bugs...it's a Bennett thing.