Cricket 0, Me 1

After a long day at school, the first thing you want to see is the inner stitching of your pillow at microscopic distances. Coming home at 2 AM, I was looking forward to a good slumber. A cricket that had made its way into my room earlier that afternoon thought otherwise.Although I can be a pretty heavy sleeper sometimes, I need it dead quiet as I fall asleep. A cricket chirping 3 feet away from my ear isn’t one of those things I can easily drown out with just my thoughts and well wishes. I got up, fumbled around for the light, and then lo and behold, the chirping stopped. It was definitely in my room, and definitely behind the black abyss of computer cables that run beneath my desk. I have two completely filled powerstrips back there, so I heavily considered just leaving the light on and going to sleep. Unfortunately, since my bed is destroyed, I’m sleeping on the floor and didn’t like knowing a cricket could join me in the middle of the night; thus, the cricket had to go.

After considering a long list of creative ways to destroy a cricket in every way possible, I decided that my catch-all bug killer solution would suffice: USP-grade 70% IPA (that’s isopropyl alcohol, not the beer). Sponsored by Genentech, I used this stuff during my last internship to sterilize bioreactors before they went into class 1000 clean rooms. It also happens to be one of the most effective bug-killers you’ve ever seen. After three hits, the cricket didn’t have a chance. After celebrating my brief victory over an insect 1/70th my size and 1/10200th my weight, I climbed into bed and fell asleep.

~ by bioscigrad on March 3, 2008.