I came home last night to find a maggot hanging from the kitchen ceiling. I’m no entomologist, so maybe it was another kind of grub, but it was white, squirmy, and right at eye level. For the sake of my daughter’s ears, I’m glad I saw it before I found it in my hair.
This isn’t our first run-in with grubs at the Soutowood household. Once or twice the trashcan has gotten a fly trapped inside, to the little rascal’s delight. After insect fornication and reproduction, a healthy crop of maggots awaited me when I took the trash out. This is the kind of task my wife cannot do. Last night I should have known better, after the maggot piñata incident, but I asked my wife to empty the compost pail on the kitchen counter. She opened it up and reeled back. Ahh, this explains our bungee-hanging visitor. There in the pail was maggot Manhattan, a thriving metropolis of infestation. (For anti-urbanites, draw your own conclusion about New York City.) I took it out and gave the fly colony a better home in the bottom of the compost pile. There they will learn a new meaning of suffering as they are slowly digested of the course of a thousand years by earthworms. Wheel of life, turn and turn.
With that unpleasantness behind, we can talk about bread! I made the no-knead artisan dough and some brioche…no…I’m still thinking about the maggots. Dang it.
One of my favorite pastimes is to ask my wife ludicrous hypothetical questions to try to get a response. Imagine: she is sitting on the couch reading, and I ask her, “Would you be bothered if I decided to grow one giant tooth?” I’d say about 80% of the time I get no response. I might as well be asking the maggots—at least they’d squirm in response. 19% of the time I get an eyebrow raise, a trademark move inherited from her mother. That last 1% I actually get a laugh or an “Eeew!” This is what I live for, but it takes 99 failures out of a hundred. Last night I asked, “What would you have thought if, on our very first date, I told you ‘You are so goddamn beautiful’?”
Her response: “I’d think you were up to no good.”
Me: “Perfect.”
Writer, architect, father, husband.
Is that picture of the squirmy critter on your daughter's hand, or is that YOUR hand? Cowabunga, mate! That looks really huge. I'd hate to see the end result of its metamorphosis . . .
Just imagine what that huge lovely could do to your hair if it dropped into it! Eeeeeeewwwww.
Umm….aren't maggots usually only on meat? Why is there meat in your compost?
Also one giant tooth..the better to eat your maggots with..?
I guess this picture is a bit misleading. I just pulled it off the internet. The actual grub in our kitchen was much smaller, about 1/2", but still an unwelcome visitor. As far as meat in the compost, there's none there but the flies still laid eggs in there. Aaaanndd…there goes my appetite. Thanks everyone!
(with lips tucked back underneath my gums)"Would you still be my girlfriend if I looked like this?""Probably not."-asked on a weekly basis at Cabinas Brooks
What makes it even classier is that you're the one asking. I always like to wedge a piece of spinach between my teeth before swooping in for a kiss. Or slathering my lips with olive oil and wedging a little crumb of blue cheese in the corner of my mouth. Kissee kissee!