Chillin' at the Beetle Motel

Some weekends are better than others and some are just different. After a week of stressing over possible layoffs I just wanted to kick back and enjoy the simple life. No fifty miles of biking, no wild partying with the neighbors, no expensive dinners, not even fishing. Just front porch sitting and weeding the garden. With the exception of watching my granddaughter's T-ball championship on Saturday morning, we kept the excitement to a minimum.

We did however, have one dirty little chore that needed to be done. We had to find a way to get rid of the Japanese beetles that were eating the raspberry bushes. Rudy had tried spraying them with pesticides last week, but that meant we couldn't eat the berries. He said I'd grow a third eye if I did. It was almost worth risking a chemically induced transformation, seeing those plump red berries going to waste. But I waited, hoping that after the rain washed the chemicals away, the beetles would be gone. Sunday morning, after the Saturday night rainstorms, we checked the bushes only to note that they were once again swarming with those nasty little bugs. Rudy said, " We gotta find a Japanese Beetle Trap today." A what? They build little traps for oriental pests? My imagination teemed with possibilities.

Over the past few months I have slowly grown to trust Rudy's knowledge of the outdoors. So I followed him to Petities Garden Center and waited patiently in the car while he went in search of the infamous beetle trap. For $11.99 he purchased a trap which appeared to be one of those "some assembly required" deals. The box stated that the trap was baited with both an enticing food scent and , get this, pheromones. We were gonna lure those little buggers with their own sexual desires right into our beetle motel. I watched as Rudy put together this weird little structure, and hung it from a branch near the berry bushes. Then we stepped back and waited for the party begin.

Hundreds of beetles flew from the berry bushes and began to swarm around the beetle trap, lured by the promise of food and sex. I know you're thinking there's something seriously wrong with Rudy and I, but I swear, it was an amazing thing to watch. We laughed and cheered as those little devils slipped painlessly into the trap seeking some kind of unrealistic reward. Not much different then us, I guess, but then we are suppose to have the larger brains. I felt as though we were winning a war without even firing a shot. No chemicals, no nuclear weapons, just luring them with their own greed and lust. Kinda makes you stop and think doesn't it? Do we really need to worry about chemical warfare and bombs? Seems like we're doing just fine destroying ourselves on our own.

If you have a strong stomach and you want proof of our beetle mania, check out the picture and guess how many Japanese Beetles are in the trap.