This makes murdering way too intimate
August 24, 2014 12:50 PM   Subscribe

 
Is this original research on your part Foci?
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 1:00 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


That's ain't murder, that's righteous justice.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 1:00 PM on August 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


Now I'm going to feel bad.
posted by desjardins at 1:11 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, pardon me while a shed exactly 0.003 a tear for the little bastard.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 1:11 PM on August 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


There is way worse carnage on my wall where I just killed two Mosquitos with extreme prejudice. Blood, guts and dismemberment has never felt so satisfying.
posted by romakimmy at 1:17 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Top of the food chain, baby!
posted by mosk at 1:22 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


GOOD
posted by mistersquid at 1:23 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


I was at my friend's house one day when a big ol' hornet somehow managed to get in. I knew he practiced philosophical Buddhism pretty seriously. So I was amused to watch him go after it with a certain lack of, shall we say, peacefulness, giving it a mighty whack while snarling "May you have a FORTUNATE REBIRTH" at it.

I'd call it understandable, given the circumstances.
posted by Greg_Ace at 1:24 PM on August 24, 2014 [50 favorites]


Anyone has a problem with that, go back to Cronenberg's The Fly and review how they eat.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:25 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Greg_Ace, I disagree with your interpretation that your friend's actions were reasonable.

I mean, smacking a hornet? Those fuckers deserve fire.
posted by kafziel at 1:25 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


Hey, I'm live and let live. I don't go kicking over anthills or fucking up spiderwebs out in the world. But once your six-to-eight legs breach the perimeter, I am Castle Doctrine all the way.
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 1:33 PM on August 24, 2014 [39 favorites]


You shoulda seen the other fly!
posted by chavenet at 1:38 PM on August 24, 2014 [12 favorites]


My finest insect-maiming moment happened about 20 years ago, when I swung a big chef's knife at a passing bluebottle. By some miracle I managed to lop off the little bugger's abdomen, leaving the head and thorax (wings still attached) to continue circling the room for at least another half minute. Insects, it seems, are quite modular.
posted by pipeski at 1:43 PM on August 24, 2014 [19 favorites]


There was a big-ass cockroach wandering my apartment yesterday. I gave it a smack with the sole of a boot... Found a smear of white stuff on the sole and floor. Eeeew.
posted by SansPoint at 1:44 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


I'm currently suffering a flea invasion due to not flea-dropping the cat the moment I saw scratching. I feel no shame as I smear the little bastards especially when they smear red meaning they've been drinking SOMEBODY'S blood.

I am live and let live with my resident spiders, though. They help me, I help them.
posted by tavella at 1:49 PM on August 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


I had a Buddhist friend who spent time in northern Ontario and refused to swat flies and mosquitos. She accumulated so many bites as to require a trip to the hospital.

As is often the case when seeing absolution, I'm torn between respect for her committment to principle and exasperation that she would choose this hill to (not quite literally) die on.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 1:51 PM on August 24, 2014 [5 favorites]


I mean, smacking a hornet? Those fuckers deserve fire.

It's super effective.
posted by hyperbolic at 1:55 PM on August 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


NOOOOO I should not have looked at that. Flies were the only things I could kill without guilt, and now I don't even have that.

My one act of joyful, faceless violence, and this guy goes and GIVES IT A FACE.
posted by ernielundquist at 2:19 PM on August 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


> I mean, smacking a hornet? Those fuckers deserve fire.

GUNK spray engine degreaser and exoskeleton dissolver is also an acceptable substitute*.

*- even if not alight.
posted by sourcequench at 2:21 PM on August 24, 2014


There was a big-ass cockroach wandering my apartment yesterday. I gave it a smack with the sole of a boot... Found a smear of white stuff on the sole and floor. Eeeew.

Fuck cockroaches. They're huge and gross and are everywhere and just. No. I hate the mess they make when I squish them.

And fuck mosquitos. Even when I kill them I still end up with awful itchy bumps everywhere.

I'm good with spiders, though. They kill flies for me.
posted by supermassive at 2:30 PM on August 24, 2014


.
posted by dhammond at 2:42 PM on August 24, 2014 [11 favorites]


A friend one got bitten on the eyelid by a housefly when we were at scout camp. His eye swelled up so he looked like the elephant man's cousin. Horseflies deserve no mercy.
posted by arcticseal at 2:52 PM on August 24, 2014


Horseflies are devilish. In Tsuruga, in Japan, where I spend a lot of time, it gets really hot in the summer. Luckily there's a beautiful cool river up in the hills where you can take a dip. It's the best swimming hole. But, just as the summer reaches its peak in terms of heat and humidity, the horseflies appear. They bite and draw blood, and it hurts.

Horseflies (abu) are also very common on northeastern Honshu (Tohoku), which sort of sucks if you are on a romantic getaway in some mountain hot spring lodge.

So this was a very pleasing image.
posted by Nevin at 3:18 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


Yeah, pardon me while a shed exactly 0.003 a tear for the little bastard.

Me? I've got 96 tears in 96 eyes.
posted by maxsparber at 3:34 PM on August 24, 2014 [11 favorites]


A right to bear salt
posted by The Power Nap at 3:39 PM on August 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


Top of the food chain, baby!

National Geographic: Edible Insects
[R]aising livestock uses a lot of resources. Eating insects—already common in many tropical countries—could be an alternative. Beetles and crickets, for example, are packed with nutrients and provide protein at a low environmental cost. . . .To disguise their form, insects can be processed into powders or pastes. . . . Protein-rich “bug-flours” that are part flour and part ground insect will likely be on the market soon.
—Kelsey Nowakowski
posted by Herodios at 3:40 PM on August 24, 2014


When I took a closer look . . .

Help me! Aaaaaaaaah!
posted by Herodios at 3:47 PM on August 24, 2014


A right to bear salt

Regrettably, as cool as the concept is, my understanding of those things is they're a great way to make a mess and kind of a crappy way to actually kill pests. Since they tend to be small targets flying very erratically.
posted by kafziel at 3:47 PM on August 24, 2014


d·b
posted by drlith at 3:52 PM on August 24, 2014


... well that got me looking at hornet videos on youtube and I found this one about Vespa Mandarinia.

This ... this is my fursona.
posted by kafziel at 3:57 PM on August 24, 2014


Never swat a fly
He may have another fly
He may sit with her and sigh
The way I do with you ...


Horseflies are weak compared to deerflies (AKA Greenheads). If you hit one of those little monsters on your arm, you have to hit hard enough to bruise yourself, or he's going to fall down, get up, shake himself and come back pissed. They are a plague at some of northern Massachusetts's best beaches in the best part of the summer. Crane's beach has a "No Refunds" policy during Greenhead season. Oh, and repellants do work, for maybe an hour. Then they start circling you, closer and closer, until they decide it's not so bad, and CHOMP.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:59 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


A lot of commenters in this thread are gonna feel really awkward in a few years when the Invertebrate Rights Movement starts to gather steam.
posted by snofoam at 4:05 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


...right along with the "let's eat more bugs" movement, no doubt.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:22 PM on August 24, 2014 [3 favorites]


There was a big-ass cockroach wandering my apartment yesterday.

FYI your apartment is almost certainly filled to the brim with cockroaches. You seen one, you haven't seen 'em all.
posted by mrbigmuscles at 4:32 PM on August 24, 2014


Yeah, the one cockroach you see is their declaration of war. They've been preparing for weeks by infesting all the places you can't see, and now, they're ready.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:50 PM on August 24, 2014 [2 favorites]


early to mid-may is the annual wasp queen war out here, when they're flying around looking for a nest site. i usually use wasp spray and get about a dozen every year, but one time...

i practice garbage anonymity - nothing identifiable to me in my trash. there i was standing outside next to my ash heap with my credit union statement and a cigarette lighter when the queen buzzed low and slow around the heap. i lit the paper and when it got going, dropped it perfectly over the queen. a loud ZZZZZZ and then nothing. when the fire went out, i blew the ashes away. her head and wings were gone, poor thing.
posted by bruce at 4:51 PM on August 24, 2014


A right to bear salt

why - why is this jello so salty?
posted by pyramid termite at 4:55 PM on August 24, 2014


This afternoon I saved several crane-fly like insects trapped inside the house, cupping them in my hands and releasing them outside to live out their short lifespans. Then I returned to the task at hand, turning 22 pounds of elderberries harvested and separated from their stems over several hours into wine and sambucol syrup. I discovered that almost every single tiny berry was infested with Spotted Wing Drosophila grubs, which grow inside the healthy berries until they drop, then hide in the soil, overwinter, and infest the next years crop in the spring. My tender insect morality when right down the garbage disposal in whirling mass slaughter.
posted by Auden at 5:16 PM on August 24, 2014 [10 favorites]


Insects would and do eat us when they get the chance. Unlike, say, cows. So I feel no remorse in killing them. I oppose having to poison all the air and water (and kill useful insects) to do it, but that's the extent of my opposition to insect killing.

These photos do nothing to stem that urge.

Outside, I keep a respectful distance and only kill what attacks me or mine. Inside, die they must. The husband is soft-hearted and takes random beetles back outside, which to me is just a way of letting in more beetles while you open the door to do so. But while I will take out some of them (like one heart-stoppingly large but beautiful green garden spider) the rest get flushed (if they are too big to squish without revulsion) or washed down the drain. Roaches are killed with extreme prejudice but are fairly rare; for some reason, they occasionally come inside to die in the middle of my kitchen floor.

Spiders I mostly leave alone, but I have to kill some, because otherwise they would web up my whole house. They love to sit in the bathtub next to the drain, which is the last mistake they get to make in this world if I find them there.

I'm sure it's not a good death when I kill one, but then they don't give a shit if they make me sick or give me malaria, so fuck 'em.
posted by emjaybee at 5:25 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


I don't ever, ever want to kill anyone. But if, somehow, somewhere, I find myself in an apocalyptic or action hero scenario, when cornered I am definitely going to "[give] it a mighty whack while snarling "May you have a FORTUNATE REBIRTH" (Thanks, Greg_Ace)
posted by sfkiddo at 5:36 PM on August 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


Unlike, say, cows.

Cows would eat you and every one you care about if they get a hankering for meat (as some do) and the ability to carry through with their plans. Unless you really want to google it and see it, just take my word that cows will eat animals like chickens, ducks, rabbits, and other animals. Not by accident, though surely it has accidentally happened now and then, but because they want to - and for some weird reason that part of it feels almost more unsettling to me than the sight of the actual act. I spent almost all of my teenage years on a farm raising beef cattle, horses, ducks, chickens and such, and cattle are dumber than a bag of hammers 98% of the time, but when they get a idea in their heads, whether its escaping the pasture to go get funky with the dairy herds down the road or just because they really like spending all day belly deep in a lake three-quarters of a mile away, watch out, because they get a look in their eyes and all the sudden they don't take orders from anybody, and the moment you're not looking, they'll make their move.
posted by chambers at 6:34 PM on August 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


"May you have a FORTUNATE REBIRTH"

Guy stands before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates. Pete looks through his book and says, "Looks you are scheduled to be reincarnated as a mayfly. Have a nice day."
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:37 PM on August 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


The universe just sent me a scorpion in the kitchen to kill, as a way of making me feel better about my bug-murdering stance.

chambers, I have heard of deer eating baby birds or small animals occasionally, maybe it's a mineral-craving thing. Still, no cow has ever scared the shit out of me skittering around on my kitchen floor, so I'm still ok with them.
posted by emjaybee at 7:04 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


but be honest, emjaybee, if a cow was skittering around on your kitchen floor, it would scare the shit out of you

especially if you just waxed the floor
posted by pyramid termite at 7:16 PM on August 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


"deer eating baby birds"

Now that's scary. Do the mother and father birds kill the deer and regurgitate it for the babies, or do the babies actually hunt and kill the deer themselves?
posted by crazylegs at 7:25 PM on August 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


That's why you put screens on your windows. Keeps the cows out.
posted by squinty at 7:27 PM on August 24, 2014 [9 favorites]


Do the mother and father birds kill the deer and regurgitate it for the babies, or do the babies actually hunt and kill the deer themselves?

the mother bird burrows her way into the deer and lays her eggs inside - then the baby birds eat the deer from the inside out
posted by pyramid termite at 7:32 PM on August 24, 2014 [7 favorites]


Something, something, world's tiniest violin...
posted by Strange Interlude at 8:06 PM on August 24, 2014


Spiders are your friends. Quiet little unobtrusive eaters of Far Worse Things. Bless them and let them on their appointed rounds.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 8:29 PM on August 24, 2014 [8 favorites]


The only good time to find a spider on one's person. (via the gentle souls at reddit's /r/wtf.)
posted by sebastienbailard at 8:49 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


I am live and let live with my resident spiders, though. They help me, I help them.

My husband screams like a little girl at spiders, and gets quite upset with me when I yell at him to leave them alone. I won't let him kill them.

I usually say hello to the spiders in the house. The ones who live upstairs are all named Charlotte. The ones who live downstairs are all named George. For all I know, I only have one spider who just gets around a lot. Regardless, I appreciate that they eat mosquitoes and suchlike, and I'm happy to coexist with them.

I DO complain at the one that shows up in the shower from time to time, though. Manners!!
posted by MissySedai at 9:08 PM on August 24, 2014 [4 favorites]


C'mon, guys, I'm right here. Show some sensitivity!
posted by brundlefly at 10:02 PM on August 24, 2014 [6 favorites]


Black flies, the little black flies
Always the black flies no matter where you go,
I'll die with the black flies pickin' my bones,
In north Ontario-io
In north Ontario
posted by Chutzler at 10:34 PM on August 24, 2014


Horseflies and deerflies and mooseflies are the only things that I will kill with pleasure. They inflict a lot of pain, and they are devious, skilled and resilient so they don't go down without what feels like a pretty fair fight. A visit to an otherwise perfect Nova Scotia beach the other week turned into an afternoon of systematically downing wave after wave of deerflies. Somehow, they just kept coming.
Inside the house though, pretty much every non-parasitic insect gets the glass tumbler and New Yorker subscription card catch and release shuttle service to a suitable shrub outside. Apart from house centipedes. See one of those, the red mist comes down and any and all weapons are deployed. I know it's irrational, pathetic even, but they are just that loathsome.
posted by Flashman at 10:42 PM on August 24, 2014


My tender insect morality when right down the garbage disposal in whirling mass slaughter.

My roommates and I used to do this at my last house with our ant problem. We'd end up rinsing the ants off the dishes and into the disposal, whereupon we'd get crazy Temple of Doom eyes and shout "sacrifice!" when our enemies were delivered from this world.

PS, have you ever seen two different ant colonies warring on your kitchen floor? It's fucking brutal.
posted by Chutzler at 10:48 PM on August 24, 2014 [1 favorite]


For a very confused few seconds, I thought he'd slapped a horse and caved half its face in. So clicking on the picture was quite a relief.
posted by Salamander at 10:58 PM on August 24, 2014


National Geographic: Edible Insects

See also Can Eating Insects Save the World?
posted by juv3nal at 11:10 PM on August 24, 2014


My crowning glory of bug killing was nailing a mosquito to a twenty foot ceiling with a Nerf dart...while lying on the couch, basically two feet off the floor. Magic.

I too let the spiders do their work around my home, with the exception of redbacks. Once you get an infestation of those bastards you're fucked. They like to hide away in crevices until they see a shoe or gardening glove and move in for the kill. Fuckers. I got bitten by one as a teenager, not the best feeling in the world.
posted by Jilder at 12:08 AM on August 25, 2014


I just realized that the same weekend that I discovered that these Drosophila flies had laid their eggs inside my little elderberries, to wiggle out in all their horrible grubbishness, my Mom informed me that a bot-fly grub had burst out of the side of her little grey cat. Same fucking trick.
posted by Auden at 12:18 AM on August 25, 2014


I have a small jar I keep handy for escorting various insects out of the house. Usually paper wasps or mud daubers. Spiders (other than black widows) have the run of the place. Flies, though, are quickly converted into miniature road kill.
posted by metagnathous at 4:42 AM on August 25, 2014


True story: I was bitten by a friesian cow on the arm as a kid. I was skinny and wearing a green sweater, so I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt and say that it thought I was an extra juicy blade of grass.

Unfortunately, it conferred no cow-like superpowers.
posted by arcticseal at 5:27 AM on August 25, 2014 [3 favorites]


How to Eat Outside Whenever You Please without Being Plagued by Yellow Jackets:

Put a baited yellow jacket out in late spring (whenever that is for you). Then you catch every single queen from blocks around during their two/three-week search for a nest. They are huge. Then you will spend the whole summer free from the nasty little fuckers.

I don't know if this works everywhere, but it works in Colorado, a place free of horseflies and mostly pretty light on mosquitos. We do have cows, but not in our backyard.
posted by kozad at 5:49 AM on August 25, 2014




I have now added shaking out my dress shirts before putting them on to my morning ritual because I once had an eight-legged friend who took to spending his nights in my closet, and one morning of feeling something skittering down your back is enough for a lifetime.
posted by C'est la D.C. at 7:38 AM on August 25, 2014


Put a baited yellow jacket out in late spring

I'm sorry; explain this, please?
posted by Wolfdog at 7:50 AM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oops! Typing while not yet caffeinated resulted in a comical typo here. I meant to say "Put a baited yellow jacket trap out in late spring." These are those translucent yellow cylindrical things you can buy in a hardware store along with a liquid you pour on cotton that only attracts yellow jackets (which are unreasonably hostile and give pretty nasty stings, especially to those who are even mildly allergic to their poison.) Benign and beautiful honeybees are never tempted by the odor. You are supposed to keep them out all summer...but you don't need to if you capture all the queens at the right season.

A baited yellow jacket? That would be quite a trick!
posted by kozad at 8:20 AM on August 25, 2014


There was a big-ass cockroach wandering my apartment yesterday. I gave it a smack with the sole of a boot... Found a smear of white stuff on the sole and floor. Eeeew.

Here in the Lowcountry of South Carolina it's all we can do to keep the f'in things on the other side of the drywall. I've become quite adept at capturing them with the wand attachment to the canister vacuum and letting them dehydrate amongst the sand, dust, and mostly dog fur that's already in there.
posted by ElGuapo at 9:52 AM on August 25, 2014


I admit, I have never gotten the spider thing. I can understand being freaked at a spider dropping on you unexpectedly or a giant one lurking in a dark crevice where you put your hand, but when people are so alarmed at one sitting on the ceiling I don't understand. Granted, I and my spiders live in such perfect harmony that I have several times had one crawl across my face or chest in bed, while websurfing on the laptop before sleep, and I carefully picked them up to move them to the other side of the bed to continue their search for a place with more bugs.
posted by tavella at 10:01 AM on August 25, 2014


I just realized that the same weekend that I discovered that these Drosophila flies had laid their eggs inside my little elderberries, to wiggle out in all their horrible grubbishness, my Mom informed me that a bot-fly grub had burst out of the side of her little grey cat. Same fucking trick.
posted by Auden at 12:18 AM on August 25 [+] [!]


Oh. Oh oh oh. OH!!!! Ok, I'm finally getting a therapist.
posted by sfkiddo at 11:44 AM on August 25, 2014


Put a baited yellow jacket out in late spring

I'm sure they'll be quite fashionable next season.
 
posted by Herodios at 4:45 PM on August 25, 2014 [1 favorite]


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