Termites

Today is February 4th. The year is still 2021. This year is really passing slowly. I'm taking a Spanish lesson every day, thanks to a website called Duolingo. Learning Spanish is easy. After only three months, I have already learned how to say the word "No" in Spanish. I estimate that I will be able to speak Spanish like a two year old in another 75 years. I recently had the following conversation.

Spanish-speaking friend: "VirtualWayne, say something in Spanish."

Me: "Cookie."

Friend: "That's English."

Me: "Hmmm. Let me check something on my phone. Da-da-duh-da-hmmm-hmm-hmm-hmm. Got it. Galleta."

Friend: "That's biscuit."

Me: "Bizcochito?"

Friend: "That's  cupcake."

Me: "Damn it! How about...(thinking hard)...bollito?"

Friend: "Never mind. It was a trick question. Spanish doesn't have a word for cookie."

Me: "Are you sure?"

Friend: "I'm Latina. Have you ever seen me eat a cookie?"

Me: "No."

Friend: "There you have it. Cookie doesn't exist in Spanish."

Me: "What about computer cookies...those short text files that a web browser can save?"

Friend: "They're called browser biscuits in Spanish."

Me: "Ay, chihuahua."

Getting back to reality, today is 50°F and sunny. I went to the grocery store yesterday, and when I came back to my car, I noticed my left rear tire looked a little bit low. So after I got home and put away the groceries, I checked the air pressure in the tire. It was less than 15 psi. Normally, I keep the tire inflated to 30 psi. I pumped up the tire with the noisiest air compressor in the world. It's a little thing that pumps tire pressure to as much as 200 psi, though I have no doubt it would take a week to do it. It took 15 minutes to go from 15 psi to 30 psi. Then I topped off the other 3 tires.

While I was doing that, I noticed termite tubes on one of the 2x4 shelving supports next to my vehicle. This was new. If you don't know what termite tubes are, they are mud tunnels termites make to travel above ground to a new place to eat your house. Wingless termites exposed to fresh air or sunshine will die in a couple of minutes.

Termite tubes look like this: (the hum-Beep is in the audio track. Sorry.)

 

"Why don't I just call an exterminator?" I hear you thinking. I probably will, and I need them to crawl under the house and check for termites there, too. One problem: the last time I had a pest control company check under my house, the guys knocked off the insulation protecting the heating system pipes. Meaning, I would have lost a bunch of heat (read: money) under the house. Not only that, but it is possible the heating pipes could have frozen. The thing that really bothered me was that they didn't tell me. I had to go under the house a few weeks later for some other reason, and discovered the damaged insulation. Damaging it and not repairing it was bad. Damaging it and not telling me they damaged it was indefensible. So now I don't trust them. I'll probably crawl under the house with them.

Once upon a time, people took pride in their work. A job well done was almost a point of honor. Now its all about the benjamins. Get to the job, do it as fast as possible, and get to the next job. Who can you trust to do a good job? The number of workmen who do a good job seems to get smaller year by year.