As you may know, I am a self imposed perfectionist preferring order over disarray. I love things neat, clean, and smelling of the great outdoors. But, this morning I experienced a developing nightmare in the daytime, which I call “My Horrible DayMare.” It’s a very scary non-fiction Halloween story of despicable monsters and goblins who descended before Halloween.
I did not know at first I was going to be wide-awake crying and shuddering at such horrible, indelible images. Oblivious to the lurking danger I was naively eager to put things in order this morning, before the rest of the family staggered out for breakfast.
MY PERFECTIONIST PLAN
Step 1 – Since we are expecting visitors soon, I stripped the guest room bed to re-wash the sheets. My goal is always to achieve that clean, sweet smelling, fresh-as-the- great-outdoors scent. I visualize sheets floating in the breeze on an outdoor clothes line like in the good old days before electric driers. Ooops! Am I dating myself?
Step 2–Anyway – I retrieved some big beach towels left hanging from hooks on our deck – remnants of a summer suddenly giving way to autumn leaves and brisk cool breezes. Snow can’t be far away can it? Why it almost seems like Christmas! Beach towels look a bit out of place now on the deck.
But, do you see how organized I am and dedicated to sparkling colors in my laundry and lavender scented towels? Who needs a spa anyway?
Step 3– I daintily dropped the sheets, pillow cases, and towels into the washer and went off to accomplish other such perfectionist techniques for home improvement. I was once again prepping our house for Better Homes and Gardens photographers who have never quite arrived.
But I’m ready. I’m always ready.
Step 4–Moving right along toward the photo spread, I put all the dishes away from the night before.
Step 5 – I prepared Rozie-the Dog’s breakfast, neatly laid out for when she should awaken.
Step 6 – I moved the sheets and towels into the drier.
*AND THIS DEAR READERS, IS WHERE THE PRE-HALLOWEEN DAYMARE STARTED!
Removing one of the sheets, I detected a rank smell emanating from the washing machine. And as I pulled the sheet out, a few STINK BUGS came along with it! Have you ever heard of a Stink Bug? YYYYyyyyukkkkkkk!
They are perhaps the ugliest insects I have ever encountered. Well, three or four of ‘em were enough to make me gag. I continued to move things from washer to dryer, and it became quite evident there were not just three or four, but 50 or more – maybe 100 – of the ugly bugs in the bottom of the washer (and probably, I thought, “in the sheets!”) Grand! What a way to start a day. What a way to spoil my own personal image of perfection! HORRORS! YYYYyyyyukkkkkk! And Oh, I forgot – WHAT A WAY TO WELCOME GUESTS!
Well I hastily put everything in the drier and turned it on, but somehow knew the buggy onslaught was not over. Sure enough, there were more of the ugly monsters in the drier. It occurred to me the bugs were nesting in the towels and sure enough, I even found a nest stuck to one of them! Bleh! The critters had found a nice warm place to snuggle and breed! Perhaps they died in paroxysms of pleasure in the swirling waters of the washing machine?
REMNANTS OF THE PERFECTIONIST PLAN
Step 7 –Holding my nose, I cleaned up both the washer and the drier and extricated the hundreds of ugly bullet shaped bodies, and left them in a paper towel for show and tell with my husband.
Step 8 – Now to re-wash everything, but first I would shake each item over the deck rail to get rid of lingerers. In that process, two pillow cases got free and fell to the rocky driveway below. Sigh. I would have to go down there to get them.
Step 9 – Having retrieved the pillow cases, I hauled myself up the stairs and managed to track in leaves and bits of debris collected from the gravel below. I would have to vacuum now.
Maybe you have the picture that about this time I was ready to go back to my own clean bed to enjoy a real nightmare where I would only be limited by my imagination about when it would end. But this – this was a real-life HORRIBLE DAYMARE that just kept getting worse and would probably never end!
Eventually this morning, all the deceased stink bugs were collected and discarded. The house was aired out. The sheets were triple washed and dried with a scented drier sheet, the guest bed re-made, and although I sat in a chair sobbing and shuddering for 20 minutes, reliving the daymare, I was perfectly calm when Bill and Rozie, the dog, came out for breakfast. Notice I said, “perfectly calm?”
And so, dear blogger friends, my perfectionist image goes untarnished and the pre-Halloween tale of the Horrible Daymare Stink Bugs is just between you and me. You wouldn’t want to ruin my perfect image would you?
ABOUT THE STINK BUG
Sink bugs are named after the smell they emit whenever they are squashed or crushed.
They eat your plants and vegetables and emit an appalling stench when they are squeezed that resembles decaying garbage.
They are also almost impossible to get rid of and have wings which means they fly off when you try to catch them.
‘They feed on a wide range of important food crops. Crops such as sweet corn, apples, pears, grapes, berries, peaches, tomatoes and peppers appear to be the most vulnerable.
Both live and dead stink bugs can be removed from interior areas with the aid of a vacuum cleaner – however, the vacuum may acquire the smell of stink bugs for a period of time.’
Related articles
- Stink Bug Invasion Promises Foul Fall (livescience.com)
- Virginia Tech researchers finds stink bug infestation keeps spreading (vtnews.vt.edu)
That is sooooo disgusting! What may have even been worse is to grab said beach towel to dry off and have all the creepies on your body! Ugh!
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Ikkkkkk! You are giving me the heebie jeebies again… 🙂
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Ewwwwwwwwwww!!! You are so brave Dor! I would have been screaming for my hubby to come and get rid of them. One or two I could have handled but not that many. You are my perfectionist hero!!! 🙂
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Not brave – no. Seems like when I am faced with horror, I proceed in a sort of robotic way to do what needs to be done. Then I collapse. I love being your perfectionist hero though! 🙂 🙂 🙂
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Good grief! Don’t you just hate when your plans get bungled and you have to rewash laundry and such. But you did remind me that I have to wash the bedding as we are getting guests too and while we are not having a stink bug invasion, I have three cats that sleep on the three beds! Nothing like a inch of hair and a possible hairball to greet a guest.
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Why to go, Dor. Now that you’re done, come over to my place. I have all kinds of bugs. That must be why there’s so many spiders out this season.
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I’ll take cats any day Kate. At least the stink bugs should disappear here with the first good frost. They are brutally ugly things.
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I just read that bird feeders are a great way to get rid of insects. The birds would probably choke to death on the stink bugs though. But Bar, Your resident spiders will probably do a better job than I can at extermination services. Not that I wouldn’t want to visit you!!! 🙂
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That was definitely a ‘day-mare!’ One of the gruesome kind — I hate those ugly stink bugs. We have them here too and I just saw one on my bedroom screen this morning (on the outside thankfully, but still….!) YUCK. You’re one brave lady tackling the whole horde of them like you did!!
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I’m finding it hard to “like” this story. You poor thing! Eeekk! On the bright side, you got rid of all of them before they could leave and invade your garden. 🙂
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Ewwwww how grotesque – I thot this was going to be some sort of scary Halloween prank – but ‘stink bugs’ – who would have guessed!
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Eww, eww, eww. Ick, ick, ick. Yuck. Bleh. Gross. Gag.
I am right there with you on things smelling nice and fresh, and it sounds like your poor laundry was anything but! I shall thank my lucky stars for never having smelled a stink bug. (shudder)
Another highly enjoyable post, my friend. This line was great, “I was once again prepping our house for Better Homes and Gardens photographers who have never quite arrived.” I wish I had that dedication! I was raised that way. I enjoy things that way, but more often than not my house is bursting with toy cars and piles of laundry and I just can’t seem to ever quite catch up with myself.
Unlike my grandmother, who used to take down her curtains and wash and iron them every season, having left them out to dry on the line (and she had five children to my two). My mother was taught to do that as well. And she hated it so much, she did the kindness of not forcing it on my like her mother did her!
But as I said, I do like things fresh and clean, and I do my best to achieve that. My best would pale in comparison to my grandmother’s. She is the standard to which I hold myself, and maybe someday, I’ll climb up a rung or two closer. For now — I’ll just smile and enjoy these great stories of hard working seekers-of-the-fresh-and-clean like you. 🙂
May you be fully rid of the stink bugs! Forever!
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Haven’t seen anything from you lately. How’s life over there?
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Oh, that’s just gross. What is wrong with Nature, anyway? I see no reason for the existence of stink bugs.
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Well, that certainly made a big job out of a not so big one!
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Thankfully, cooler weather is here and the stink bugs have gone to their winter hiding places – hopefully not in my house!!! Glad you think I am brave though. They were very ugly, but all dead. 🙂
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Hmmmmm! There is a bright side to everything. 🙂 Thanks for helping me discover this one Lori!
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Yup! Grotesque is the perfect word! 🙂
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Oh, I am so thankful for your “take” on House & Garden living Melissa. I know it’s impossible to live up to your Grandmother’s standards, especially with children. And I think it’s wonderful that you put their happiness first and the heck with any clutter and washing and ironing the curtains every season. The joy of living is far more important than any of that other stuff. Since we are retired, we rarely have hoards of visitors (people – not stink bugs), but they (the people) are coming for a visit over the next few weeks. And we have just returned from a vacation in California, so no time to clean and scrub in anticipation. I will just relax and worry about restoring order after we have fun with the grandkids.
Meanwhile, thanks for your good wishes re being rid of stink bugs forever. I have only seen one since our return last night. It’s downright cold here now so I think they have gone into hibernation.
Love your comments and your stories too of happy kids with a happy mom! 🙂
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Hay Lilly! I didn’t think anyone would notice I disappeared from cyberspace for just a week. So Thank you! Bill & I took off for California and just got back last night. Now I’m trying to unpack and reduce the number of emails. Saving your posts for when I am recuperated enough to pay them the attention they deserve. I may also do a blog post on getting lost in parking lots out west. 🙂
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You are so right. Nature gets murky sometimes and stink bugs are signs that maybe Nature has gone amok. 🙂
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This is true… I keep trying to understand the puzzlements of life and stink bugs are definitely an enigma.
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I don’t want to give cause for another daymare, but here’s what happened to me last year: At the first cold snap I decided to make the first fire of the season. So I lit the fireplace in the living room, when suddenly without warning, zillions of stinkbugs fell down from the chimney walls, where they must have built about a thousand nests. It was horrific. Even though most of them were dead from the fire, the smoke, or the shock of having their hiding place discovered!
Double YUK.
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Thanks for the second daymare Ronnie! 🙂 Yours is a worse stink bug story than mine! I like your blog and I’m following. Dor
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That’s right, you were in San Diego when I was. DId you see me at the local Starbucks! Or on the beach at the wedding without chairs and a lot of folks with sand in their shoes and sunburned faces. 🙂 We were at the zoo on Fri. Pics to follow. 🙂
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Missed you at Starbucks and definitely missed the wedding without chairs! Can’t wait to see your sandy pics. We wanted to see Wild Animal Park but missed that in favor of visiting the wild animals in our family. More later…. Hurry up with the pics! 🙂
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You write so well and I was loving the imagery of the hostess with pride in her home, the whole homemaking thing which I love, and then the stink bugs! Ugh! I have them at the holler, but not inside. I do get centipedes inside, but since we have a pest control company they are usually deceased. I was happily cooking the other day and there was quite a large centipede that was dead on the floor outside the wine room. I decided to leave it there for my husband to dispose of (it’s a good hubby job) when I went to get something from the pantry and it was GONE! This unsettled me for hours, until i found it in the dining room. I used an old Business Law Text book, dropped in on the icky thing and dispatched it. This was the most use this text has ever been!
Cheers cindy
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Yikes, your centipede story is yukky too. Thanks goodness for the old Business Law Text Book and its final judgement. So glad you found my blog. I’m following you now too.
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For the love, I was felling your pain. I cannot imagine what all those stink bugs must have smelled like and how horrific it was to find all the parts and pieces and clean them up, especially form a washer. You also had me laughing at how frantic and horrific your morning was and how composed you were by the time the rest of the world joined you!
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So many thanks for your “review” of that blog post. It does fit in with Halloween horrors. 🙂
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There are still about 20 of them, clinging on the INSIDE of the screen….of the screened in porch. I told my husband to leave all of the windows closed tight until they all went away or froze or something. I would love to open the windows and let the air in…the weather is nice right now. But Auuuugh, I fear those stinkin’stink bugs!!
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