Dave Barry - The Taming Of The Screw

Although the techniques described in this chapter are designed primarily for the smaller styles of pests, they will also work on larger ones, such as goats or people who want you to become an Amway distributor.

Termites are unattractive little insects that have developed a highly complex society, very much like American society, except that instead of houses they have nests, and instead of a president they have a queen. The queen can lay up to 46,000 eggs a day, more than eight times the output of the most productive U.S. president, Grover Cleveland (1837-1908). So we can see that termites are indeed amazing creatures.

Beneath the queen in the termite hierarchy are the drones, and beneath them are the workers, who are chosen for their stupidity. Each day, thousands of workers scurry from the nest in search of wood, with the idea that they will chew it up and mix it with spit and bring it back to the queen. The queen doesn’t want it, of course; nothing appeals to her less than chewed wood mixed with termite spit. So the instant they leave the nest, she and a few top aides swarm off to another house, probably yours.

The easiest way to keep termites away is to install a 6,000-volt, one-inch-high electrical fence around your house. This fence will keep out not only termites, but also most snakes. Of course, the snakes that do get past the fence are likely to be extremely angry, so it might be a good idea to wear a sidearm at all times.

Roaches are the hardiest form of life on earth. In a recent experiment, scientists detonated a hydrogen bomb directly on top of a female roach, and the only noticeable effect was that several days later she gave birth to 65,000 baby roaches, some of them weighing as much as three pounds.

Many people believe they can get rid of roaches by spraying them with poisonous chemicals, but this is utter nonsense. Roaches love poisonous chemicals. They’ll often gather under the sink late at night and lick the residue off the Black Flag can. The more chemicals you spray, the more roaches you attract. This is how your professional exterminators stay in business.

The only surefire way to get rid of roaches is to remove all the liquor from your house. Roaches can mate only when they’re drunk. Can you blame them? Would you mate with a roach if you were sober? So what roaches do is get really drunk, then have hurried, squalid sex amongst the filth and little rolled-up balls of grease and ketchup in the darkness under the refrigerator. The next morning the female lays 35 billion eggs and vows never to do anything so disgusting again, but by nightfall she and her mate are creeping up the side of the Jim Beam bottle again. Alcohol abuse is a terrible problem among roaches, which is why you see so few of them in positions of responsibility. So you’ll be doing them a big favor if you get rid of your liquor. It might also be a nice idea if you and your family squatted in front of the refrigerator from time to time and had inspirational discussions about the evils of drink.

You cannot simply spray toxic chemicals on children the way you can with roaches, because children represent our Hope for a Brighter Tomorrow. So the best way to deal with pesky children is to read them a few old-fashioned traditional fairy tales in which various deformed creatures ingest children who do not behave. At the end of the story, say: “See, Bobby? If you don’t want the great big ogre with eyes that glow like red-hot coals in the darkness to come into your room tonight and plunge his enormous yellow fanglike teeth repeatedly into your flesh, you must never set fire to Daddy’s legs again.” Or, if this approach doesn’t work, you can simply place your children in the washing machine and set it on Spin Dry.

The best way to get rid of mice is to set traps. To illustrate why traps are so effective, let’s look at what goes on behind the scenes in a mouse family.

It’s a cold winter’s evening, and Momma and Poppa Mouse are putting little Debbie and Jimmy Mouse to bed. “Oh, Momma,” Debbie cries, sniffing her little pink nose as a tiny tear trickles from her deep, brown eyes to her soft, gray fur. “I’m so hungry I don’t think I can sleep. Couldn’t we have something to eat, please?”

“Now, now,” sighs Momma Mouse. “You know how upset the humans get when we eat their food.”

“That’s right,” chimes in Poppa Mouse. “And frankly, I don’t want to upset the humans any more, because they’ve been acting mighty odd lately. The other day, they were squatting in front of the refrigerator and talking about liver damage.”

“But Daddy,” says little Jimmy Mouse. “If we don’t get something to eat soon, we’ll starve to death, and it’s Christmas Eve. Besides, there’s a stale old piece of cheese just outside the hole, and I’m sure the humans wouldn’t mind if we ate it.”

“You’re right, Jimmy,” says Poppa Mouse pensively. “I’ll just go outside here and pick up this piece of ...”

The only way I know of to get rid of toads is to clear the children out of the room and strike them (the toads) with hot pokers.

You should take care of your yard, because it tells people a lot about you. For example, if you have a lot of yard statues, it tells people you’re a jerk.

The most important part of your yard is the lawn. In America, having a nice lawn is considered a major cultural achievement, like owning a hardcover book or watching “Meet the Press.” Americans would rather live next to a pervert heroin addict Communist pornographer than a person with an unkempt lawn.

The first step toward a nice lawn is to determine the chemical content of your soil. To do this, dig up a handful of soil and examine it carefully under a harsh light: It should be composed of dirt, unless you live in New England, in which case it will be composed of enormous rocks; if you live in the South, your soil may also contain used tires.

Once you’ve determined the chemical content, you should add some random chemicals to your soil. Many lawn experts recommend that you add nitrogen, which is stupid, because nitrogen is a gas, and there is no way in the world you can add it to your lawn. It will simply drift off into the atmosphere the instant you open the bag. So your best bet is to just go up to the medicine cabinet and root around for some chemicals in the form of old prescription pills and dump them on your lawn.

I use old tranquilizers on my lawn, and not only have I saved a lot of money on chemicals, but I’ve also found that I have an extremely relaxed lawn. Take the earthworms. Instead of sliming around underground in a nervous, twitching manner, as so many worms do, my worms loll about on the lawn surface, laughing the laugh of the truly carefree. Oh, sure, sometimes they get underfoot, but it’s a lot better than the time I gave them amphetamines and they were up all night shrieking about how nobody loved them.

Dandelions are easy to get rid of: You just jab them with red-hot knitting needles. Some people even eat them in soups and salads. Most of these people die within hours.

Crabgrass, the squat, ugly, tattooed plant that makes up 85 percent of your lawn, is tougher. Crabgrass can grow on bowling balls in airless rooms, and there is no known way to kill it that does not involve nuclear weapons. Oh, I know you’ve seen advertisements for lawn products that are supposed to kill crabgrass, but don’t believe them. Crabgrass thrives on these products. In fact, my crabgrass often tries to dupe me into buying them. When I’m getting into my car, my crabgrass will yell, in mock horror, “Oh, please, don’t go to the garden supply store and buy one of those deadly anticrabgrass lawn products!”