Tail (pun intended) of the Yummy Bug

[CoolCyberCats]

Now for the 2nd part of the story. I also posted this on my site early this year when recanting the Yummy Bug Story for some new people...

I am not sure of the date this happened any more. I believe Itchy was still alive, though in chemo at the time. One of the trips back to mom's in NJ had me buy a bunch of YUMMY Famous Ray's NY pizzas (they are huge too, 22" or so). I froze the slices and then packed them up the day before I left moms and I shipped them FedEx next day delivery back to our house. Donna and I miss what we consider GOOD pizza. I like NY style, and Donna being from Chicago loves the Chicago style deep dish. But the one thing we do agree on is that the pizza here is not too good. I suspect it is more an issue of what you grew up with, but I just find the crusts here rather bland and tasteless and the sauce pretty plain as well. But I bet people raised here feel different.

Anyway, we would have a few slices of the NY pizza on Friday nights (Friday is our pizza night). One such night, and I believe it may have been one of the first 2 or 3 nights with the yummy NY pizza, we heated up several slices on the pizza stone in the oven. When they were nicely done I took the stone out and put it on the stove top and finished preparing the other foods (likely French fries, salad and green beans). Then we sat down in front of the television and began eating. On the 2nd or third bite I thought I smelled something strange, and the pizza tasted pretty awful. Then I realized I smelled STINK BUG and noted something crunchy on my mouth. Since normally the bottom crust, sauce and cheese does not crunch like that I quickly deduced the issue and spat up a mouth full of chewed pizza into my napkin and ran to the sink. Sure enough a stink bug had landed on my slice and I stupidly shoved the slice into my mouth and chewed and chewed. It is not like I noticed right away either. I chewed once and sniffed the air, more figuring one was near. I chewed again and thought the pizza was oddly crunchy. I sniffed and chewed 2 more times and noted the taste was very much like the stink of the bugs, in fact, no, it was far FAR worse.

So there I now was spitting into the sink, washing my mouth out with water, spitting, washing, spitting, washing, spitting, gagging, gagging and wanting to puke. Donna was laughing in the background and I am sure ^Itchy^ felt vindicated from my posting about his repeated attempt to eat the Yummy Stink Bug. It was so awful that it put me off the NY Pizza. The rest of the pies sat in our freezer for months before I could even consider eating any again!

Of course I eventually got over it and went back to pizza. I sent more home on other trips, along with other wonderful east coast foods that cannot be found here, including proper NY bagels (especially salted), proper Jewish Rye bread and more. But to this day I remember quite well the taste of stink bug, cheese, wheat crust and tomato sauce. I'll tell you this, there is no disguising the distinctive flavor or oder of stink bug, nor is doing so worth it. My best advice is to just simply avoid using stink bug as a pizza topping, no matter how strong your urge may be.


And what do these icky bugs look like?

[CoolCyberCats]

I posted the following on my cat's website on October 2nd, 2002.

My cat Itchy seems to be a bit stupid....
Actually it is funny too, but
his inability to learn form this same mistake makes me wonder about his sanity.

Our first summer/fall here in Montana. As the warm weather wanes and the
cooler nights grow, we found that there is a bug that we never had in Illinois.
It is a type of stink bug. They are about ¾ to 1 inch long, fly and reek the
foulest of odors when disturbed. They seem to be naturals at learning how to
infiltrate our home; proof being that Donna and I were catching up to 5 a day in
the bedrooms.

The first time I saw Itchy find one was about a month ago. One had landed on
the carpet and I was in the room watching television and keeping Itchy company
(he was quarantined from the other cats due to Toxoplasmosis). Itchy’s tail
twitched as he spotted a “yummy” bug on the floor. (I must state here that Itchy
loves to catch and eat moths. Personally I find that habit a bit gross, but he
loves them much like I love confectionary.) I watched as he lunged off the bed
to the floor to stalk his prized delectable morsel of “yummy” insect goodness.
He leaped upon the bug and I saw his little nose go downwards ready to smell
then devour his prize. Then his tail puffed larger than I ever though possible,
he arched and ran under the bed. I knew then what happened. So I took a tissue
and picked up the offensive bug and got rid of it.

Later that night he spotted something on the wall and we had a repeat
performance. The next morning he was laying on his condo looking out the window
and he lowered his head to look at something under the level he laid on, and he
puffed up, cried out and leaped sideways from the condo to the bed (5 feet) in
one shot.

The next day I watched in amazement and laughter as he stalked another
“yummy” bug that turned out to be an offensive beast. Each day he repeated the
same hunt and stalking of the infamous “yummy” bug, only to puff out, cry and
run (often hiding too).

Funny as it may be, I am starting to question his intellect and ability to
learn. It is not like these bugs change colours or size. Personally if I ordered
a cheese pizza and it tasted like it spent 12 hours floating in the NYC sewers,
then tried 3 more and each flavour caused me to run… I would have learned a
valuable lesson. Itchy is ether a masochist, stupid or he actually enjoys
getting sprayed in the nose. No matter what it is though, it brings a grin to my
face and a good laugh, which are both needed by me these days.

So here is to my wonderfully, silly, masochistic, slow learned, dark charcoal
and white domestic shorthair cat, Itchy. You gotta love him.


My sweet cat Itchy left us on May 12th 2004 after an 18 month battle against cancer. He was my 1st cat death and I still miss him horribly.

Itchy


(Itchy's paw print frame, urn, favorite mat and in the front his favorite toy, his laser)