Homeland Insecurity

It started when I went to the pantry to get some "top shelf" commodities, and noticed an insect that looked disconcertingly like the genus identified by my sister as "mealy bug" which invaded her home during a plague earlier in the '00's. When Sister saw a similar bug in my kitchen back in '05, she suggested a defense strategy that rivaled anything Homeland Security could employ.

Shaken, but not stirred, (I've been scientifically proven not to be an overly emotional person, don't forget) I thought that I should go through some of my dry goods to verify their integrity. It would only take a few minutes, after all, and I could then rest assured that Summer '07 would not go down in family history as the Year of the Mealy Bug Epidemic.

As I was removing items from the shelf, I was slow to respond to what I first registered as a calming, waterfall type of sound. That peaceful noise was actually a full bag of sugar slowly sifting down the shelves of the pantry and resting in the wide seams of the plank flooring. So much for a few minutes...

The next shelf down, a full box of thin spaghetti broke open, spilling strands of pasta like Pick-Up Sticks into the white pools of sugar.

There were no bugs to be found in the pantry, mealy or otherwise. Although now, with granules of sugar hiding in recesses out of vacuum reach and thin spaghetti stuck between the baseboard and the wall, I'm sure bugs of several species have sensed the breach in our security and are planning a massive offensive. We're projecting '08 to be the Year of the Exterminator.