Nathan Meets the Bugs of New Zealand:Part 3 (I rarely can tell a story without swearing. It's by far the most Jersey thing about me.)

Last night, maybe around 11:30 (I go to bed early during the week. It's lame but so is the real world.) and I'm half asleep, when I hear a rustle amongst the papers and magazines I have piled up against the wall. At first I think nothing of it. Stuff creaks and crackles during the night. It happens and we live in a creaky flat as it is. It's not the most stable construction and the whole thing can shake from seemingly insignificant events.

But then I hear the rustle again, and wake up some, and realize its a heavy rustle that after summers of living in platform tents out in the woods I've learned to associate with a rodent. So shit, I have a mouse. I don't want to have to hunt it down in the morning so I get out of bed and turn on the lights.

And then, that fucking...Land of the Lost Mutant Flying Tank launches from a pile of papers right at me, buzzing at a level that mimicked an electric shaver perfectly. Needless to say it's more than I expect out of life at the moment and I trip backwards and fall on my ass.

Which is a pretty cruel trick for the universe to play, seeing as how I'm already half-asleep, half-blinded by the sudden light, and wearing nothing but a pair of ratty boxers.

The rest is a blur, but somehow in a matter of seconds I open the door, grab the nearest heavy object at hand, I Love You New Zealand (101 Must-Do's For Kiwis), and swing at the mofo with precision I really wish I had possessed during the embarrassing mandatory baseball years. Thing goes flying out the door, I collapse into bed, and forget the whole crisis ever happened.

I get home from work tonight, and the third thing Jess says to me is "Oh my god, guess what we found." And there, contained in an empty Hennesy bottle, is the damn bug, STILL ALIVE, twitching and going at the booze residue like its happy hour. Guess I can't blame him for heavy drinking. Nobody's really sure what it is, but Kiwi opinion is leaning towards an oversize Mason bee. Which is just awesome.



Here's a picture of our tree so this isn't all just about me killing a bug. The neighbors still haven't succcessfully gotten us evicted. Life is good.