2007
Sep 
29

Diane Rehm and “Deer Lady”

13:22  
 

Jeff told me last night that when he met Diane Rehm last week at a talk that she gave in Kalamazoo he told her that I, his partner, was currently in Alexandria, Egypt studying. She was apparently excited, partially because her mother is Egyptian, and told him to wish me all the best and tell me that she thought that it was wonderful that I was studying here and doing what I do.

I actually got a bit teary-eyed when Jeff related her words. I am terribly sad that I didn’t get to see her speak and meet her in K-zoo, but that was almost as good. It was nice to be wished well by someone who I might even call one of my heroes.

Anyway that just made my day.

Now, a little tidbit for your enjoyment:

Cockroaches are not just a reality living in a city like Alexandria, they get up in the morning and put the coffee on and wait for you to get up and read the news with them. They are everywhere. Thankfully, we don’t have many very regularly in my apartment. This is not to say that we have none: I killed two yesterday. They are, however, manageable. On top of the very occasional cockroach, we have had a terrible ant problem. These are not the big carpenter ants that I am used to, they are little, what my grandfather would refer to as “piss-ants.”

So, we have bought everything from ant traps, to spray, to various poisons and nothing has seemed to work. Until now.

Last week I purchased a packages of these rather large pill-shaped things that are meant to kill crawling bugs like ants and cockroaches. You are just supposed to place them around in cabinets and drawers, in corners and near the places where you see these things coming from.

What follows is the instructions on the back of the package, from which I learned what these magical pills do. I would not call this technical writing so much as poetry. keep in mind that the spelling and punctuation is verbatim.

Enjoy.

Deer Lady

deer lady, put this pills inside kitchen cupboard with out any fear of damages on your kitchen equipment or your food.

deer lady, the result of this pills will show after (24-72 hour) and will be continue for months.

deer lady, after getting rid completelyof the crawling insects, leave this pills at it is still working for months.

deer lady, if you have gaze pipe at your kitchen, you should put this pills under the gaze pipe, because it is the most preferableplace to the insects

I hope that you got a kick out of that as I did. I just would really like to know who the “deer lady” is. Also, I am a little upset at having lived my entire life without a “gaze pipe” in my kitchen. I imagine that this is some sort of device for spying on your neighbors. What a cool idea.

I love that the translator of this passage was word literal to the original. I also that the writer took the liberty of composing a poem to all of the housewives in the world who might use this product, rather than simply writing out instructions in the normal dry, prose of technical terminology. It is the little things that I find beautiful, I guess.

I hope that you all can be graced with poetry on your cleaning products and insecticides today.