every night when i come home from work or bars or, there are at least five or six tiny bugs scrambling around on my kitchen countertop.  when there are more (and there usually are, especially when i put dishes in the dishwasher or run the water in the sink, because that’s when they tend to come out of their little hiding places and dart around in search of somewhere else to hide), i pick the biggest ones to spray with my bug-killing aerosol.  i spray each one liberally.  a few seconds of constant spray make them crazy; they flop around aimlessly, as if those few seconds of spray are the human equivalent of seven shots of whiskey.  ten seconds of spray (for the tougher ones) are apparently the equivalent of whatever fate befalls the loser of a lengthy whiskey-shot drinking game.

there’s a bug on the wall now, to which i’ve had to give three consecutive ten-second sprays.  i figure this one is a serious drinker.  he drinks straight from the bottle, alone in his little nest, trying to forget whatever it is that bugs have trouble with.  he’s just one of many i’ve watched flip and squirm and eventually give up under my steady barrage of imiprothrin [[2.5-dioxo3-(2-propynyl) 1-imidazolidinyl] methyl (1rs)-cis, transchrysanthemate].  or whatever.

it’s odd, watching a living thing (however repulsive it may be) die at my hand.  as the bugs twitch under their thick layer of toxin, there is at first a sense of power.  i am the master of my kitchen!  i control its inhabitants!  i am their god, striking down whenever i see fit!  but then, as i spray more and they move less (and eventually not at all), there is a sadness.  i have destroyed something.

just now i went to look at the bug that i sprayed for thirty seconds.  it’s gone.