Termites of June

I drove over to the big hardware store, bought about twenty pine two-by-fours to shore up the kitchen wall. This is the wall that separates the bathroom and kitchen. I don’t really need that much wood, just thought it would be nice to have it around—just in case. I left the old truck parked in the damp evening air, took instead the little station wagon. I thought maybe I would load the wood on top, but this car actually handled all of the lumber inside. I unloaded it at the house, stacked the boards on the sawhorses on the new porch, and went inside to look around.

I had to move the gas stove out of the way, then the refrigerator. They were both already disconnected, so it was just a matter of moving them. When I’d cleared a space big enough to work in the kitchen, I started cutting away at the rotted and bug-eaten wood in the wall. It was this wood that would be replaced with the new pine studs. Although there was a good-sized area of damaged wood, I felt some satisfaction that I was tackling the job myself. This was one of those times when I could justify—at least in my mind—taking on this project. The reason is this: Had I engaged a contractor to come in and do the renovation work, they would have given me an estimate based on what they were seeing in front of them. They couldn’t tell what was behind the walls, would have no way of knowing that there was bug damage. With my budget stretched to the limit, the discovery would only add many more dollars to the previous estimate, which was probably already going over budget.
“We’re going to need to take out all of that wood, put in new studs. That wasn’t included in the original estimate.”
“How much?”
“Looks to be about fifteen hundred dollars.”
Knowing that I could easily do the work myself, I would have no choice but to give the go-ahead. There was no changing course in mid-stream; I couldn’t pick and choose what aspects of the work I wanted them to do. So, confronted with the termite-chewed timbers, I didn’t feel so bad. This was my problem.

January 24, 2008

The problem I was feeling so smug about, having licked the termites in my mind, is now monumental. Much of the house’s main support is eaten away—a veritable banquet for the little bugs. They’ve gone on their way now; no longer is there evidence of their presence. What they’ve left me is a good-sized calling card—in the form of a half-eaten main beam. My ire is up, and when that happens, I give vent to it with a horrible poem. Normally I wait for things to settle down a bit, but in this case, waiting is not an option. No—it must all come out now.

You bugs, You bugs!
Why can’t you be
The kind
That fly around?

Or sting me on
My pale white ass
Or
Crawl upon the ground?

I much prefer
That kind of bug
Not that
Kind which is you

You eat the wood
Where people live
You chew
And chew and chew

You hear me, bugs?
I’m talking here
Although
I know you’ve gone

The house still stands
Its main support
A hero
In a song

Should it fail, too
Collapse all down
The rooms
One giant spill

Be ye assured
Blithe nibblers, you
Of where
I’ll send the bill

This poem I have already submitted to the following publications:

“Mite News”……..a monthly glossy that follows termites and their activities.

“Bug Monthly”…..This is a less glamorous newsprint edition that comes out weekly, contrary to its name. It is a general treatment of bugs and bug-related items.

“Les Termites de Juin”…This is a French publication (transl: “the termites of june”) It is a fanciful treatment of termites, their habits, and a general extolling of their existence through verse, song and certain forms of modern dance. It has a rather limited audience.

One publication only, Bug Monthly, replied, saying in their form letter that they’d already chosen a termite poem this year. Besides, they added, even if they’d received my poem at the same time as the other, they still would have chosen that one. For one thing, they said, it’s much shorter. They were kind enough to tell me that it was submitted by Joel Ouragon of Noel, Oregon, and included a photocopied version of his work:

Them ‘mites is mighty hard at work
Their giving me a run for my money
Mites is hard at mites
Their putting up a fight
When you spray at them
Sometimes their dead
But they might have
Already ate a lot

---Joel Ouragon

So we’ve put that behind us. I’ll formulate a plan of attack in the coming days, possibly involving a simple fix, like bolstering the existing wood with a new support screwed into it. I’ll cut away all of the rotted and bug-eaten wood first, see what I am left with. I can always add additional vertical supports in the basement—something I am loath to do. It cuts into the available floor space down there, which is not ideal. I would rather leave things the way they are. Right now I have stopped, my progress halted after the discovery of extensive termite damage. The upright supports between the bathroom and kitchen are cut away and discarded—gone with today’s trash. It was this project that led to the finding of large-scale damage in the first place; once the studs were removed, I realized that there was very little in the way of support down their at their base. I also discarded some now-defunct electrical wiring, strands of copper sheathed in their antique jackets of cloth wraps.

Today I pulled away from the car rental place, at the wheel of a gleaming new Chevy. Every radio station was tuned to rap and hip-hop, the speakers blaring this music at three-quarter volume when the car was handed over to me.
“Music loud enough?” I asked the helpful young rental man.
“They was listenin’ to it like that,” he offered by way of explanation. “They” were the people who just got the car cleaned up for another trip upon the Maryland highways. It had been returned maybe a half-hour before, the renters no longer needing its service.
I eased into the new seat, got it adjusted, turned the power mirrors so I could see, and found the volume knob for the radio. I turned it down, then tuned every single station to classical music, jazz, NPR, news and some other selections that would piss off future renters. This car was much nicer than mine, which was in the shop, being repaired for the collision damage it had sustained just recently. The car that I am now driving tells me different things, like what the outside air temperature is, whether I should maybe check the tire pressure, and a whole host of other things that my car keeps mostly silent about. As I said, it is MUCH nicer than mine. I’ll put a CD in tomorrow, maybe listen to my beloved Edith Piaf. Either that or some truck-driving songs—it’s a toss-up.