The Great Outdoors

I open the door and enter the store, where I am greeted by three pairs of eyes staring glassily in my direction. A diorama of taxidermied White Tailed Deer, stag, doe and fawn, cause me to pause again, to ponder the paradox of a human mind possessing a surplus of sentimentality—contriving this touching but fictive family scene—whilst simultaneously being in the grips of a desire to get them—father, mother, and child—into the crosshairs and pull the trigger.

After looking at carabiners, I make my way to the Hobbies section, hoping to find kites, or bubbles, essential for any camping trip I’m involved in. But the first thing I see is the the Bug-A-Salt plastic assault rifle ($52.99), “use ordinary table salt as a lethal projectile,” available in yellow, camo, or pink camo. “Insect hunting as sport has entered the 21st century with this fun new non-toxic device.” Fun and non-toxic for some; not so much for others: or as the Roman philosopher Lucretius (99 BC-55 BC) aptly put it, “Quod ali cibus est aliis fuat acre venenum,” “What is food to one is to others bitter poison.” Salt lethally dessicate insects upon contact.

As for 21st century remediation of insects, I actually think the more advanced technique is one employed by my mother when a student at Nottingham University, in about 1952. She moved into in a country cottage, which a nearby ant colony considered part of their domain. Since they were oblivious to notions of the threshold, ignorant of “indoors,” they marched to and fro in a black ribbon to forage in the kitchen. Did she trace them back to their nest to douse it in salt, or boiling water? She did not. She opened a tin of treacle, and placed it on the front door step, creating a delicious barricade which stopped the ants in their six-footed tracks to feast on syrup, and thereby obviate their need to trespass.