Get your buzz on

Hello, hello. You asked for it. The fan mail pleading for my eloquent musings piled up and piled up. I've finally accepted the public's call. I'm back, by popular demand.

So, what's new since I've talked to most of you? Hmm... Well, I spent the first few weeks of the summer working at The State News, which is far too boring to expound upon. I followed that up with a road trip worthy of the title, Road Trip, because of its length and overall involvement with many 'a road and diner. Then I spent a few days with Jess in Phoenix, where we went swimming and shopping and ate Chocolate Marshmallow Cosmos. Then I went to South Korea and Japan, which was amazing but way too strenuous to have to write about in a blog right now.

Then I came back to East Lansing (on Sunday, to be exact). That's where this story begins. As many of you know, my roommate Jon Malavolti got a job at The Macomb Daily, so he's gone. My other roommate Paul the Greek dj got a job in D.C., so he's gone too. And of course, you're all gone away doing great things. Basically, no one is left in East Lansing (and I mean no one (yesterday I saw a tumbleweed roll down Hagadorn)). Yet, still, my house is abuzz, so to speak.

You see, my landlord Art Beaudrie, while a man of quite legendary bearded status, is a complete bonehead. Before I left East Lansing, Jon and I would often grill burgers out on our balcony. We'd eat, drink beer, generally bond. Then we started to notice we weren't alone. Large, droning bee-like insects started popping up everywhere, each day more and more. We really didn't mind. They left us alone. We didn't bug them. There was an understanding. Then, just days before I left, I was sitting on the balcony when I heard this strange grinding/grating noise. I looked all around before honing in on one of the railings to the balcony. There was a sawdust-like powder piled up underneath it. I listened closely and realized some sort of bug was digging in there. I started to further inspect the premises and noticed about a dozen more little holes, each above a tiny mound of sawdust.

Here's where Beaudrie comes in. I tell him twice that this is bad, very bad. The bee-like creatures were tearing into the wooden balcony, something that can't be cheap to replace. And guess what that miserly old codger did... NOTHING! Because I come back here Sunday hoping to find them all gone and they weren't. It was worse. One railing now looks like a chunk of Swiss -effing- cheese. And the buzz... THE BUZZ!

I knew that I had to take matters into my own hands. By way of Internet research, I established that the Carpenter Bee was the culprit. I got the proper spray (two -effing- bottles) and went to town. Yesterday, the fruits of my labor produced a carnage reminiscent of the Nazi Holocaust. Dead bees littered the ground beneath the balcony like the bodies in some botched special-ops raid on a Nicaraguan opium plantation. I laughed and kicked at them with my flip flop.

Then, late last night, while lying sleeplessly in bed, I heard the buzzing again, this time through the wall. Were they coming through, I thought? I turned down the TV and listened for what seemed like an eternity. Nothing. Was it all in my imagination? Were they mounting a counterattack? I'll never know. But this morning I bought another bottle of liquid death and sprayed that wall back to hell.