Maggots, Again

A few years ago, when Corey and I lived in our lovely little apartment, we had maggots in our kitchen when I neglected a bag of potatoes in the summer heat. I thought I would die of horror and shame or both, but I did not. I scrubbed the suckers and moved on with my life, incorporating much more vinegar and bleach into my cleaning routine and making sure to keep after my rotting food a little more robustly.

I thought all those problems were gone when we moved into a house. I have room, after all, inside my fridge to store potatoes so they don't rot on the floor. And I have a mighty Earth Machine composting most rottables in the backyard. Plus our trash comes every week right to our curb, so we can get rid of things easily and quickly when they turn a bit sour.

Last night, Corey and I were watching a delightful documentary about crime in Sao Paulo, a film which kept making artistic allusions to Brazilian criminals as a bunch of frogs on a frog farm. A frog farmer explained that the easiest and cheapest way to feed a farm full of frogs is to have a decaying ox lung and let flies lay eggs in it to mass produce maggots. Yum! So Corey and I sat on our couch eating ice pops and learning about maggot breeding--fun facts all around. "Maggots," I told Corey. "How interesting!"

"Yes," he said, "I like how they mix the maggots with dry food to fatten up the frogs and save money." We became experts, I'll tell you what.

This morning, I dragged the trash can to the back yard after the garbage men took away our trash. I happened to open the lid of the can and there, swarming around the bottom of the barrel, were more maggots than a Brazilian frog farmer could ever wish for. Unlike last time, equipped with my new maggot knowledge, I observe the critters scientifically and did not scream like a baby. I thought briefly of the abject poverty in South America, at the dear cost of a decaying ox lung and how much this maggot den might mean to a struggling from farmer there. But I couldn't very well donate my maggots to that frog farmer, who was sort of corrupt anyway, so I decided to dispose of my maggots.

I poured bleach into the trash barrel and left it in the driveway, where the maggots will hopefully die a slow and painful death before I throw in any more garbage.