That Was Not Rice!

Even with the risk of becoming someone you may not want to ever have anything to do with again, I feel the pull to tell this story nonetheless. The reality is, it happened, and I firmly believe that not only is it no reflection on my worthiness as a human being, not even should it be a commentary on my housekeeping ability, which, though may not ever attain the level of a crew of Merry Maids, is at least highly passable. I can honestly say that there has never been an instance of any city official pasting a condemnation notice on my door, nor have I ever been evicted for anything even remotely raunchy. Having said that, and hopefully reassuring you that I am indeed a person worth your love and respect, here goes:

One morning before work, I walked into my kitchen. I lived in a tiny apartment, part of a large house which had been converted into separate residences. I loved my place, the very first lease I had ever put my signature upon. I moved there a year after my divorce and cared deeply for each and every room: bedroom, bathroom, living room, and kitchen.

Although it was decorated with former marriage furniture, a few old bedroom pieces from my childhood home, and some other junk, I had gotten a few new things on my own. It took about five minutes to clean the whole apartment top to bottom, but I always took special care with the kitchen. I loved that kitchen because not only was cooking becoming a passion, but my landlord Aubrey, a very nice family man who took special care of newly-single me, had completely gutted and remodeled it; it wasn’t even completely finished by the time I had officially moved in.

It was a nice kitchen. The walls and floor were sparkling white and along two of the walls were several windows which let in copious amounts of sunshine. I hung sheer white café curtains on each and with my brand-new two-person black and white bistro table and matching striped chairs in the foreground, it was a kitchen I was proud of.

On this particular spring morning, I walked into the kitchen and saw a large piece of rice on the floor. As I bent down to scoop it up, I noticed that it was moving. This was no rice, this was a maggot.

The word repulses me. It is a sickening word, truly onomatopoeic and one that I vote to be stricken from the English language. Maybe we can replace it with something less stomach-turning, like yippy-doodle or amberwave. But still, that’s what it was and there was no changing that. Appalled and queasy, I killed it with a ten-foot pole, threw it away outside, cleaned that area of the floor, scoured the kitchen for more, and, satisfied there were none, went to work. All done.

When I came home that evening and went to the kitchen to make dinner, I noticed a fly by the window corner. Flies don’t bother me, as long as I don’t think about their myriad eyes and hairy legs, I am okay enough with them to do a swat and dump. But when I went to do this, I noticed that it was very small and slow; it was buzzless and seemed to float rather than fly, as though it was drunk. I also noticed that it had company – a lot of company. As I looked around, I saw flies everywhere. I realized that there must be a nest in the wall and that a new family had emerged, making their debuts right in my own kitchen! Hence the yippy-doodle on my floor that morning.

I immediately called Aubrey who raced over and called the exterminator. The flies were taken care of, bumped off in the prime of their little lives, little black corpses littering my nice, white kitchen floor.

Thank goodness I have never had that problem again. Now that we live in such an open area with woods not too far and wildlife afoot, we deal instead with spiders, cicadas and beetles. I am terrified of each one of those things, but at least they’ve never began as a moving piece of rice on my kitchen floor.