Bio-communities

There's a bio-community on our back deck. No seriously. (And I'm not talking about the Townhouse crime.) We cannot open our back door without the invasion of creatures of the six- and eight-legged variety. Natasha has been convinced that our deck doubles as an insect jungle, but I've assured her that this is just not true. I'm wrong. We just had the Simciks down for Thanskgiving 2005 II, and she opened the back door to shake out the tablecloth. She hadn't opened the door more than a centimeter when I heard the familiar, "UGH!!" She slammed the door, and I knew that the ICE (Insect Community Ecosystem) had invaded our home again. The ICE came out in force this time, as several multi-legged creatures scurried across our kitchen floor (the subject of another blog that was never written). Undaunted, Natasha attacked the ICE with balled-up paper towels. One cunning member of the ICE invasion squad, Arnie the Arachnid, actually slid back into the crack between the door and the doorjamb. Natasha called in the reinforcements, the HID (Husband Insecticide Division), to destroy the invader. The HID won this one because I sprayed into the crack with Mr. Clean kitchen cleaner. (Don't laugh; we've all used chemicals to destroy creaturely invaders.) Victorious, Natasha put the HID away and called out the HOTS (Husband Outdoor Tablecloth Shaker) to take the tablecloth upstairs and shake it out the front door of the complex. The HOTS walked away victoriously from that one, too...without any more ICE invasions.