Maggots

    Ok, first off, don't read this if you are squeamish. It contains numerous references to maggots, as indicated in the title. Consider yourself warned.

     This morning, I woke up, got ready for work, and walked into the kitchen to make my lunch. Spread across the floor was what looked like about a cup of rice. I was like “CAITLIN!!!!!” She's one of my roommates, and she's a lovely girl, but she isn't very neat sometimes. And then I stood there for a bit, annoyed at her and wondering if she'll clean it up today or next week. The I noticed that the rice was moving. Fast. It wasn't rice. It was maggots. Big ones. On my floor. MAGGOTS. I didn't scream, I didn't barf, I didn't panic. I let a few choice words fly. Several times. I was in major oh-my-god-there-are-maggots-on-my-floor-get-them-off-my-floor-why-are-there-maggots-on-my-floor-where-did-they-come-from-clean-it-up-I-have-to-go-to-work-maggots-maggots-maggots-on-my-kitchen-floor-maggots-on-my-dining-room-floor-oh-god-maggots-in-the-living-room-maggots-in-my-house-oh-god-why-me mode. I also only had about 15 minutes to clean it up, make my lunch, and go to work. It wasn't going to happen.

     Luckily, one of my other roommates, Kevin, woke up and slouched into the hallway, where I waited with a dustbin and a panicked litany of “Kevin, THERE ARE MAGGOTS ON THE FLOOR MAGGOTS FREAKING MAGGOTS ON THE FLOOR WHY ARE THERE MAGGOTS ON THE FLOOR I HAVE TO GO TO WORK AND THERE ARE MAGGOTS WHERE DID THEY COME FROM MAGGOTS ON THE FLOOR!!!!!!” Poor guy. What a way to wake up. He mumbled something about putting clothes on and left while I tried to sweet the maggots into the dustbin.

     Here's the funny thing about maggots – they don't sweep. They are also very fast. Faster than you'd think. So I sort of rolled their gross little squishy bodies across the floor with a broom and piled them into sort of a central location in the middle of the kitchen floor. I turned my back for a second to get the small dustbin AND THEY ALL INCHED AWAY FROM MY NICE NEAT PILE. It was gross. Thanks to Francisca's Genetics class, however (and her delicious brownies), I had learned to eat a brownie with one hand and stare at a vial full of squirming maggots with the other. So I wasn't so much grossed out as I was panicked as to how I would get this cleaned up and prevent them from spreading to other parts of the house.

     About that time, Kevin came back with a mop and some bleach and started sloshing it around while I threw some food into a bag, apologized profusely for my inability to help out much, and went to work. That day, there was a deluge of emails in my inbox regarding maggots. I have never learned so much about maggots in such a short amount of time.  Nor have I ever written or read so many emails containing the words "maggots."  Kevin and my fourth roommate, Danny, had bleached the floors in three rooms, cleaned out the garbage pail (which was found to be the source [we empty it regularly, I PROMISE {just not this week, apparently}]), and looked up Wikipedia information on maggots. Evidently it took 3 hours.  Poor guys.  So now our garbage pails are all sitting outside, we are cleaning everything as soon as we use it and making sure the drain trap is always clean (occasionally an issue here) and hoping that we starve the disgusting things out. They also left a helpful sign on the way into the (maggot-free!) kitchen.  

No maggots here!  

    And that was my day. It was unnecessarily eventful.  

Gee, thanks, I made it myself!

    When people compliment you on clothes you're wearing that you actually made yourself, what do you say? “Gee, thanks, I like it too!” “Gee, thanks, I made it myself!” “Gee, thanks, it's my favorite!” The first one is like “well duh I like it, I'm wearing it!” The second one is like “Why yessss, I am a person who is obviously digging for compliments” and the third is probably the best way to take a compliment, I guess. Because when you say “Gee, thanks, I made it myself!” then you basically condemn the complimenting person to being like “OMG REALLY YOU ARE SO TALENTED THAT IS AMAZING WOW YOU ARE THE COOLEST PERSON EVER!!!” which is just kind of a weird position to be in. Like on the one hand, yeah, I have some mad sewing skills, and I am proud of them. On the other hand, I'm a Mennonite, and pride is pretty much as bad as one-bun zwiebach on the scale of zero to sin.

    That being said, why thank you, I did make this dress myself, and if I may say so, I'm damn proud of it. I may have actually followed the directions on this one. By which I mean I didn't make any super huge alterations (except for the bust, because again, I am not build like Marilyn Monroe). I did cut it out in a size twelve for some reason. That was stupid. So I had to take a lot in on the bodice. And then the armholes! Gah, the armholes. They wanted you to use bias tape to bind the armholes! BIAS TAPE. Barbarians. So I found another similar pattern, used the armhole facing, modified it slightly, and used that to bind the armholes. Then of course, that created way too much facing on the shoulder strap, which was kind of stupid, so I had to do some kind of creative cut-and-stitch to get it to lie flat.

     But the pattern is great and I love it (I'm currently making another dress out of it). It's a great, cute little A-line that goes pretty well with my Toms or a pair of tights and heels.