The Ninja Bug Assassin

August 10, 2008 at 11:12 am (authors, blogs, bugs, family, humor, insects, love, marriage, writing) (, , , , , , , , , , )

The other morning, I was making my infamous cup of gourmet coffee, still somewhat puffy eyed, and I was suddenly surprised to see a grasshopper in the inside sill of the kitchen window.  It’s an early October morning, so I was thinking he must have hopped on one of us yesterday … perhaps the dog, to get inside out of the cold.  I’m wasn’t sure really why, since it’s a relatively harmless little critter, the immediate sight of it somewhat shocked me.  I am not afraid of bugs and I’m the hero of the household when it comes to “killing the infiltrating hornet” or “smashing the trespassing spider” or whatever quest assigned to me from my wife … who for all accounts and purposes is utterly terrified of insects.  For the most part, I try to gather up the little breaching bugs and bring them outdoors where they are set free to potentially wreak havoc in someone else’s household … a last chance for them, if you will.  That particular morning, I realized that the life of that grasshopper was in dire jeopardy.  I remember considering trying to scoop it up with my hand and get him outside, but I was still half awake and if I missed, this guy was going to be jumping all over the place and I was going to make a ruckus in a quiet, peaceful and still sleeping household that would surely wake the other occupants.  My wife, daughter, and dog were all sleeping soundly and that’s the way I wanted to keep it.  On the other hand, if this critter wandered off … or I simply forgot about him … (you reach a certain age and your mind can start to … I forgot what I was going to say) … his fate was certainly doomed. You see … there is an assassin among us in this house.  She is silent and does not scream or announce her swat of death.  She is covert with lethal precision.  And if she saw this poor little insect inside the walls of her home, she would smash this bug without provocation, without remorse, without a glancing thought, and then I will be the one that has to remove the carnage. 

            My wife is a gentle, loving, and nurturing woman.  She is a wonderful mother and a loving wife.  She is tender, beautiful, and passive.  Except there is a dark side to my wife.  She is a super hero to some … to others … mostly in the insect world … she is an evil villain.  My wife has an alternate lifestyle.  She has been trained in the ancient arts of the Ninja.  She knows hundreds of ways to assassinate insects without cause, without provocation, without an ounce of consideration, and without a thought.  It must have taken years of training and conditioning for this woman to be as effective as she is.  She can assassinate a bug coming near her … not even really going in her direction … just near her and not even really notice that she just killed it … going on about her business as usual, while the dying bug writhes in the throes of death at her feet. 

            One day … not too long ago, my daughter, my wife, and I were in the back yard playing with our daughter’s toy golf set and I was trying to teach her the all important lessons of pars and teeing off and which club to use for which par.  I don’t even like golf, but it seemed important for me to teach her what I know about it.  My wife stood in the background and watched admirably as I fought to maintain the focus of the five-year-old with such stimulating techniques.  Suddenly, out of nowhere, a small, harmless dragonfly flew near my wife.  I’m not talking about the three to four inch variety of dragonfly that makes us all a little bit nervous when it invades our space with loud flapping wings and hovering to and fro in front of our face and over our heads annoyingly, I’m talking small.  Like maybe just over an inch … maybe an inch and a half.  He was just a little guy.  And he wasn’t flying at her.  He was flying by her.  But he made a mistake.  He flew into the international “Non-Fly Zone of The Ninja Bug Assassin.”  Also known as INFZNBA.  Without flinching … without even really looking, her arm extended out, swatted the crap out of the poor unsuspecting dragonfly… who for all we know was on his way home with a toy for his or her tots as he promised he would be … but as it ended up … not this day … not ever.  He fell to the ground immediately dazed and confused.  His wings were badly broken and his spine cracked in half.  He would never fly again.  But that didn’t matter because the assassin wasn’t finished yet.  The bug was still alive.  Without consideration of this bug or his loved ones, my wife, the Ninja Bug Assassin, lifted a foot and stomped on the poor bug.  I would love to say he was dead instantly and felt no pain … that his pain was brief and he died immedietely.  However, surprised as I was, my facial expression surely conveying that fact that I did not approve of the unnecessary slaughter I had just witnessed, I watched the long tail section of this bug curl and uncurl as it writhed in painful convulsions which led me to take my larger booted foot and disintegrate the insect to put us both out of our current miseries. 

            I looked at my wife.  I said nothing, but my expression surely spoke volumes.  
            “What?” she asked in defense of her action.  “It was coming at me.” 

            “No … it wasn’t,” I said shaking my head and reciting a brief eulogy for the deceased.

            “It might have,” she tried to convince me. 

            The most horrific aspect of the whole assassination was the child seeing the entire ordeal.  A future Ninja Bug Assassin already in training and not even realizing it.  I could see the sparkle in the young girl’s eyes looking at her mother with awe and admiration.   

            I try to show my daughter which bugs you can pick up and which ones you can’t.  Sometimes, I have learned new things about bugs myself.  Like ladybugs can actually bite you.  Don’t tell me otherwise because one of them little creeps did so once and I winced and said “OW!” to the utter shock and horror of my daughter.  She hasn’t picked up a ladybug since that day … and neither have I for that matter.  Probably another reason why she will become a skilled assassin like her mother. 

            The Ninja Bug Assassin style of killing does not exhibit the most choreographic executions to their intended target.  It’s not always the most graceful or pretty sights to witness.  Sometimes it can even be downright awkward.  It can involve hopping around on one leg, while screaming … or running around in circles ducking and rising repeatedly like a chicken … or swaying to and fro with both arms flailing in the air or repeatedly circling around the hair and head of the assassin … as if trying not to drown … with no body of water nearby.  Even a variety of these techniques can and will be used in many of the assassinations.  The results are always the same.  No matter what the poor bug does to escape the Ninja Bug Assassin, it winds up dead.  It cannot escape from the lethal clutches of the NBA. 

            After the assassination, my wife returns to her lifestyle as if nothing happened without conscience.  Almost as if humming a lullaby to herself it would seem.  The body of the unsuspecting target will be dead or dying at her feet, a mere afterthought before she decides what to make for dinner … or perhaps what she’ll wear to work tomorrow … or ponders whether to fold laundry or do the dishes first.  Something of that nature.

            That morning, I’m looked at that grasshopper and told it in a whisper trying not to be heard, to stay still.  I knew that I was going to forget to all about him when I was more awake and would have the speed needed to catch it and release it.  If I tried to before I was fully awake, I would certainly miss and be running and crashing and stomping all over the house to try to catch it before … it’s too late.  She would awaken, come out to see what the ruckus was all about … the grasshopper would mistakenly hop near her direction, and without a moment’s notice, even in her foggy state of emerging awakeness, she would strike with deadly results and the carcass of the grasshopper wouldbe squished against the fibers of the carpet and left for the “removal system” AKA … me to clean up the mess. 

            A happy ending that day, however, I’m glad to announce to all of you bug lovers out there.  I didn’t forget about the little guy.  Actually, okay … I forgot at first and I was in the office on the computer and heard my wife in the kitchen starting her cup of coffee and a bright amber warning light of memory flashed across the screen of my brain.  Oh my God, the grasshopper!  I must save his life!  I leapt up and without trying to raise too much suspicion went into the kitchen as if to kiss my wife good morning.  But the skills of the Ninja Bug Assassin go far beyond the actual executions to the unsuspecting targets.  She was dubious of my intent and anyone could tell her sonar, radar, and any other ar she uses was on immediate high alert. 

            “I have to get rid of a bug,” I confessed.  Honesty is the best policy, they say. 

            Ninja Bug Assassin Mode went into automatic overdrive.  She walked across the kitchen like Keanu Reeves in special effects of another Matrix film.  Slow motion, yet ready, willing, and able to strike the “blow of death” at any second. 

            “Where is it?” she challenged in a demonic voice not her own.

            “I’ll take care of it,” I promised.  Her eyes scoped the entire perimeter of the kitchen and I knew then, this grasshopper’s time on this good green earth was limited. 

            “Please, Honey,” I pleaded for the innocent bug’s life.  “I’ll take care of it.  Get me a net from Jadyn’s bedroom.”  She did without complaint.  I had to be on high alert. 

            After handing me the net, she retreated back to the safety of the dining room where she watched in silence and … almost what I think may have been a slight degree of melancholy that she was not going to have the opportunity to kill.  I scooped up the grasshopper and ran him outside before anything else could happen to him.  He must have felt the tension.  It was so thick inside, you could have cut it with a knife. 

            I tipped the net upside down and as he fell to the grass I could have sworn I heard him say … “Bless you, dear sir.”  I stuck a finger in my ear and wriggled it all around and went back inside.  But first I said, “You’re welcome, friend.”  It must have just been my imagination.

            All in a day’s work when you live among the Ninja Bug Assassin Association of America, or NBAAA … something our daughter is destined to join the ranks of. 

 

Jody L. Campbell

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Two Girls in My Bed … Not Exactly a Fantasy

August 7, 2008 at 10:16 am (authors, blogs, children, computers, family, humor, kids, love, marriage, writing) (, , , , , , , , , )

I woke up the other morning around 4 AM and there was this beautiful young girl in our bed between me and my wife. She was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and she smiled when I opened my eyes and she said … “Hi daddy!” Hmmm …

“What are you doin’ in my swamp?” I asked her in my best Shrek impersonation. This, as always, produced a smile.

“Sleeping,” she said.

“You don’t look like you’re sleeping to me,” said I.

Mommy, who was now awake, decided to try and return her to her own bedroom and that seemed to work, but I never got back to sleep. So, I tossed and turned for about an hour and finally relented at about 5 AM and got up. I crank started the dial-up connection and went to the kitchen to start a cup of coffee. In my mind, I was imagining the two tasks competing in a head to head race to see which would get accomplished first: the finished product of a cup of coffee or finally getting online through the archaic dialup and low KBs connection. To my astonishment, the computer won hands down. Adding the necessary ingredients into my coffee, I made my way towards the office, set the coffee on the desk, positioned the chair to a comfortable setting, and placed my hands on the keyboard. Ah yes, I can write … I thought, anyway.

Had I just heard something? A door creaking, maybe? I turned my back to see a fleeting glimpse from the corner of my eye speedily making its way towards our bedroom where I hoped my wife had not suffered the same fate as I had that morning trying to get back to sleep.

“Hey!” I hollered out. The figure’s pitter-pattering feeties stopped dead in their tracks, turned 180 degrees and bee-lined for the office.

“I can’t sleep,” she said.

“Join the club,” I said. She tried in vain to tell me she was scared, but I could tell otherwise with her gorgeous, but lying eyes. She’s not a very accomplished fibber yet.  It’s a work in progress.

“Why not lay on your bed with the door open for a while and I’ll protect you since you’re right next door to the office,” I offered.

“Okay,” she said excitedly. Too excitedly for me to think this was going to have any semblance of endurance. Sure enough … a few moments later, she emerged back into the office to tell daddy a really cool story. Of course it was gibberish and she was making it up as she went along. Gotta love her 5 year old imagination. I have no idea where she gets it.  <whistles>

Now, if I was Mommy, I’d be making her get back into bed and saying … you need your sleep because I do not want you to be a cranky girl at Nanny’s today and high maintenance when you finally get home tonight. This would produce wailing and crying in protest, and that she was scared and that she wasn’t tired. But I’m not Mommy. And I didn’t want to hear either wailing or crying at this time of the morning.  I don’t want to hear wailing or crying any time of the day.  I simply do not have the fortitude my wife inhibits when it comes to such matters.

“Look Daddy!” she exclaimed referring to the predawn light coming through the edges of the mini-blinds, “it’s already morning time!”

“Uhuh,” I said, “but it’s still early honey and I want your mommy to be able to sleep.”

“Can I stay up?” she asked knowing I would let her. How does she do that?

“If you stay in your room and occupy yourself without waking up your Mommy.”

Off she went happily and I didn’t really think Mommy was going to get back to sleep in all honesty. She has an uncanny ability to lay there for hours trying, though. And, I used to get up early when I was young. And look at me … I turned out just … fine? … Hmmm … wait a minute!

“Jadyn! Go back to bed!”

“Waaaaaaaaahhhhhhh!” Now … even the dog was wide awake. I clicked the red X on the upper right hand corner of the monitor screen and called it a day on the Internet.

This very morning, while I write … I have gone through the exact same routine as the other day, sans waking up to my wide awake daughter between my wife and me. I got a little bit further along in the routine this morning. I was already getting my stats on the preseason football games and the final roster cuts when I heard …

“Mommy!” being hollered out from her bedroom.  Oy vay! 6:15 AM is what the clock displayed. Wow … she’s sleeping in, I thought to myself sarcastically.

“MOMMY!” She hollered even louder with more enthusiasm while I was deep in thought. One would think I’d be intercepting the hollers before they produced a wide-awake Mommy.

I went to her bedroom and opened the door. “What’s the matter, Honey?” I asked.

“I want my nut.”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, Daddy,” she said with a degree of contempt and a dash of sarcasm. It’s a little early for that, wouldn’t you think?

“Um … NO! I don’t know.”

“The peanut.” I’m still clueless. “I think it’s up on the shelf with my ballerina puppet.” I moved the puppets and saw no peanut. “It’s the one I got out in the woods, Daddy!” Obviously, she finally realized her father still had no idea what he was looking for. “The squirrel nut! Hello!” Yeah, full blown sarcasm. I hate to admit she gets that from me.

Now I finally understood what she was looking for. She had found an acorn in the woods one time while she was hiking with her preschool class. I have not, in all honesty, seen this crazy acorn in several months and why I’m looking for this damn nut at 6:15 this morning when I could be writing a blog entry is quite beyond my realm of reasoning.

“There’s no acorn up here, Jadyn,” I said.

“Oh … okay. I thought it was.” Uhuh … sure you did. Conniving little … Man, I love her though.

As I tried to exit her bedroom and shut the door, I got the “I gotta go potty” routine, so I just knew she wasn’t going back to bed. I used to get up early when I was a kid. And look at me. I turned out just fine. Hmmm … wait a minute. Nope. I don’t want her wailing this morning. I just got an idea for a blog entry. How about petty bribery?

“Jadyn?”

“Yes, Daddy?”

“How about I put Tak and the Power of Ju-ju on for you and you stay real quiet and not wake up Mommy.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” she practically screamed. So much for keeping the house quiet, I thought as the dog emerged from our bedroom.

Anyway … Mommy’s still in bed (wide awake, I’m sure) and my daughter is laying on the sofa watching her TiVo’d television show. And that gave me the opportunity to write this blog writing exercise. Thank goodness!

Jody L. Campbell

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The Ant and the Coffee Maker

August 5, 2008 at 3:12 pm (family, humor, love, marriage, writing) (, , , , , , , , )

    It’s a catchy title for a story. It reminds me of one of Aesop’s Fables where there will be some lesson instilled in young minds who endure reading it. That’s probably not going to happen in this tale. Although, somebody might learn something from my mistake. That’s only a mere theory with no statistics to back it up whatsoever.    

    It started out just like every morning. I go to the bathroom, wash my hands, turn on the computer, and then I go make my cup of coffee. Once the coffee maker is started, I return to the computer to crank-start the ancient phone-line modem and connect to the Internet.

    The coffee maker chugs and churns on the kitchen counter. It’s a two-cup model and it does just about the perfect job of brewing our favorite gourmet blend coffee. One of our few lavish luxuries. I brew one single cup, which is rather large … about 14 ounces … and when it is ready, I set the machine up for my wife.  This way, when she get’s up, all she has to do is push the button.  That’s love, people. 

    Once I finally got connected to the Internet, I assumed that the coffee machine must be pretty close to finishing. It’s sad that our dial-up takes so long, but that’s the undying truth to the matter. Just in case, I began the process of checking out all of my favorite web sites, to obtain my sports news and stats, check the weather, and of course, my own personal author based web sites data. Now, surely the cup of coffee is complete and only awaiting the perfect amount of sugar and cream to be added and consumed with delight.

    On that particular morning, I abandoned one particular web site and left the home office to retrieve my much anticipated cup of coffee. To my surprise, I heard another unfamiliar chug emanate from the machine as I approached it. What on earth could have slowed this process down, I wondered? Okay, the fact was, I knew it could probably stand to be de-scaled … you know … the old white vinegar and water treatment that cleans the sediments out of the insides of the machine.  Aren’t those the exact same ingredients of a Massengill douche?  Is that fact just odd to me?  It was a fairly new coffee pot and, to my own chagrin, I realized neither of us has taken the time to exercise the important maintenance procedure in our quest to obtain the perfect cup of coffee on a daily basis.

    I gathered that it was a little too early in the morning to start such a cumbersome task and promised myself that once my wife’s cup of coffee was brewed, later when she finally got up, that I will undertake the procedure personally.

    As I grabbed my cup of coffee, I noticed despite the amount of water I had put in, the machine had not yielded it all back. Although the automatic shut-off switch was no longer illuminated, only a half of the cup was filled with coffee. I pondered putting some more water in the well after I lifted the cover to see if there was any left inside, and to my surprise there was none. Where did it go? Did it evaporate? Was that the foreign chugging sound I had heard the machine make just a few moments before? Had it steamed off the water that was supposed to go into my cup of coffee? I inspected the counter-top to ensure that I hadn’t actually spilled the water when pouring it into the well. As I noticed the dry surface of the counter, I realized that I was in denial that the coffee machine just needed a simple cleaning and resolved myself to my newly brewed cup of … espresso, I guess. No amount of sugar and cream would make this gourmet blend of coffee the perfect cup on that morning. It was too strong, obviously because the proper amount of water had not brewed and filtered through the heaping ¼ cup of grounds placed in the filter trap.

    I like cappuccino, so I settled for the strong coffee that morning. As usual, before returning to the computer, I set up my wife’s cup so all she has to do is hit the start button when she decided to finally get up.  Love, I say.

    The coffee was pretty strong, but tolerable enough for me. I resolved in the fact that I would be making another cup later on to take on my commute to work and the machine will be de-scaled for that cup, therefore, it was not a complete loss.

    I returned to the computer and browsed more sites and gathered more data and statistics. Soon my mind was finally submerged in thought and the coffee machine de-scaling became low on the thought process of things to do. That is, until I would take another sip of my coffee and grimace down the mouthful. Hey … it would wake me up proper, right, I tried to convince myself. 

    A little while later, my wife woke up. She stealthily approached me from behind, trying to adjust her sleepy eyes to the bright monitor of the computer and ensure that I was behaving myself on the Internet, and then she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and neck and placed her head next to mine for our first “good morning” kiss. Satisfied with the fact that I didn’t quickly close one window and was startled by her attack, I offered to get up and go push the button to the coffee machine. We have a joke … sort of. She tells me that I make a better cup of coffee than she does, so I tell her it’s all in the way I push the button. I’ve extended this joke to the way I stir the cream and sugar in the final product. Counter-clock wise for several swirls and then one final clock-wise stir to slow the whirlpool of hot coffee down. It’s the one clock-wise stir I insist to her is the flavor stir.  I tell her and she smiles, certainly never buying into my theory.

    I pushed the button to the coffee machine again and listened to it come to life and begin the process all over again for her cup. Returning to the home office, I kept a watchful ear out on the chugs and churns to make myself aware if she was going to endure the same problem I had earlier with mine. Much to my pleasure, when the cup was done brewing, the perfect amount of water had filtered through the machine and she now had a perfect cup of coffee sitting below the cone. Lucky her. I added her cream and sugar and did the whole counter-clock wise/clock-wise procedure, which produced yet another smile from her sleepy face and I handed her over the cup. She happily walked to the living room to sit on the couch with her coveted coffee mug and awaited for the caffeine to kick in.

    I told her about my less than perfect cup of coffee and the fact that we needed to de-scale the machine. She told me the manual for the coffee maker was conveniently inside the cupboard right above it where we also keep the mugs, the grinder, and the coffee. To my horror, there were several procedures to de-scale the darn thing. It’s not rocket science. It’s repeating the same process over and over again and letting the machine cool down in between. I had to leave for work in just over an hour and now my second cup of coffee of the day had a threatened existence. I fervently began the process, but before I did, I decided to unplug the machine and run water through the well and just tip it back out in the sink.

    Now, considering the title of this story, I’m sure the reader is just waiting to find out why I chose to call it what I did. You can imagine what I discovered when I tipped the machine full of water over. There, at the bottom of the sink was a large, black ant. The big ones that grow almost an inch long. He had been sitting on the bottom of the coffee maker well and I had mistaken him for some sludge of some sort since he had been boiled for God knows how long and how many times. He was dead, of course.

    Suddenly, my mind screamed out. I must tell my wife to stop drinking her coffee and I’ll just make her a new cup! Then, the rational part of my brain spoke up. My wife is totally “bugged” out by bugs. Pun intended. She had certainly already had a few sips off of her morning coffee. And this ant is undoubtedly the cause of the machine acting up incorrectly when it brewed my cup earlier. Maybe the ant was trying to drink as much of the water as it could so it wouldn’t burn so badly. Who knows? Only the ant and maybe God and neither one of them were talking to me. Listen, J. I said to myself. If you tell your wife that you just discovered this ant inside the coffee machine, not only are you going to ruin her first cup of coffee of the day, she’s also not going to be able to enjoy the next one or the one after that. All she’s ever going to remember is that the machine was breached by a bug once and it will never leave her. And it’s not exactly like I was feeling any adverse effects from the ant. I felt okay. It’s not like the ant was crushed and ground up in the coffee grounds and then brewed. It was inside the fresh water well. So we weren’t exactly drinking ant-flavored Columbian coffee. We were drinking filtered ant-enhanced Columbian coffee.

    Not telling my wife was a dilemma to me. She not only suggests that I be completely honest with her, she demands it. By not telling her about this grotesque discovery, I was lying to her. “Shut up” screamed the rational part of my brain. “You’re not lying! You’re simply omitting the truth! And think of the repercussions she’ll suffer with all of her future cups of coffee! By omitting this one minute detail, you’re actually saving her and she will be able to enjoy drinking coffee for many years to come!” He was right. Swallowing down a large lump of guilt, I decided to keep my mouth shut. I had drank the coffee. And I had felt fine.

    I cleaned the large, black ant out of the sink with a paper towel and threw it in the trash. I then set up the de-scaling process of the machine and by the time I went to work, I had just about the best cup of coffee ready that the machine ever made. I did check the well after it brewed. Nothing. The perfect cup of ant-free Columbian coffee. Yumscilly!

    Of course, since there is an ounce of grotesque humor in this tale, I decided to write it and in case you’re wondering, my wife reads everything I write. Therefore, this is more of a therapeutic confession to her for me then it is a humorous essay on rational behavior. So my secret won’t be secret for very long. Once she discovers this piece (and she will discover it because she finds everything!) she will confront me and ask me if this is true.

    The dilemma, people … by writing this essay, I have forsaken my own choice to conceal the very thing I made a rational decision to hide from her. The quality of her future cups of coffee are now at stake and it’s all because of me and that stupid, lousy, suicidal ant. Of course, I can be satisfied with the fact that this took place a couple of weeks ago, so at least she was able to enjoy all those cups of coffee in between without wondering what other foreign objects may be filtering through our home brewed coffee.  She will add a daily ritual of checking the coffee maker well to her obsessions.  Not so bad, really. 

    Now, I am stuck on what to write about in my next essay. The mosquito and the spaghetti sauce, or the spider and the underwear drawer. Another confession and another dilemma are just waiting to unfold.

Jody L. Campbell

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