INLSA

Of all the repulsive things in the world, is there anything more revolting than a maggot?

I drew up a list the other day of all the things that make me squirm – Top Billing; Vienna milkshakes; the entrails of moles; tramp poo; tripe; chakra alignment centres… and none of them tops the sense of panic I get when confronted by a churn of maggots. Yes, churn.

Because the collective noun “group” assigned to maggots by entomologists and other people who wear moonbags is just too civilised. School children come in groups. Pop stars come in groups. Maggots come in a churn.

My problem with maggots isn’t because they are the insect equivalent of hyenas, or that one day I might become an underground buffet for them. No, my maggot problem lies behind the garage, next to the rogue butternut plant and to the left of a pile of discarded gutters. For it is there, in a plastic green condominium, that the maggots are doing their maggoty thing: churning amid potato peelings like drunk rice grains at an orgy.

It was my husband’s idea to install the condo. He calculated how much organic waste we produce, multiplied it by 3.4657cm3 and returned from the hardware store with a compost bin. “We’ll be so green we’ll practically be Shrek,” he said.

I trusted B. Besides being a practical sort, he is an environmental scientist with a Master’s degree in microbiology. His thesis examined how microbes break down waste.

One would assume, then, his compost condo would be a model of green technology, like one of those eco-hotels that have recycled cutlery and solar-heated Jacuzzis. Instead, our compost condo is like a maggot Margate hotel with flaky bed sheets and a pool bobbing with dead rats.

Now I wonder if B is actually a serial killer with 15 wives, a Ponzi scheme in Florida and a Standard 7 pass from a special school.

It started fine. Onion skin went into the bin and disappeared, mango pips shrivelled and lettuce leaves vanished. Along with our recycling and indigenous plants, we were as green as Shrek at a crème de menthe tasting. Pity we hadn’t read the instructions – and that B might really be called G and know nothing about bugs or waste or graduation ceremonies – because, overnight, our compost condo became fully booked with low-lifes. I became green – with envy and nausea. While other people had organic worm farms, we had a feedlot of maggots that would make the producers of Fear Factor weep. And the maggots were just the beginning.

Anyone with a Standard 8 in biology knows maggots are the precursors to flies. Obviously B – or G, or whatever he’s called – missed out on this because he affectionately calls the legless churn in the compost bin his “fly babies”. He even sings to them – a rap version of Norah Jones’s Fly Away With Me. And he doesn’t seem to mind that in the mornings his anchovy toast looks more like a Chelsea bun, studded with the fishy flapping of a million grown-up maggots.

I, on the other hand, am driven to distraction. I dance around the house, swatting and flicking. I burn citronella oil and even planted six citronella bushes in the garden, breaking off branches to hang in the kitchen – only to witness a squadron of flies settle on their leaves.

I’ve considered DDT, atomic bombs, divorce, carnivorous plants, chameleons and moving to Alaska. I have also pondered the ecological state of the world: why are dodos extinct and not flies? Why can’t men in Asia be persuaded that it’s not rhinos that will enhance their manhood, but ground-up maggots? What is the exact purpose of the fly?

This weekend, it came to a head. Actually, it came to four squashed heads and some creamy smears on the kitchen floor. “We have to talk,” I told B, wiping maggot off my shoes. “And it’s not about Kevin.”

B agreed to remove the condo and bury the contents in a hole. He then promised to buy 20 fly traps and retrieve his thesis from the loft to brush up on his skills. And he reluctantly undertook to investigate worms. “Now I’ll have to find a new song,” he muttered.

By this time next week, we will hopefully have a squirm instead of a churn. And there will be rules in the worm villa: no pillow fights, no drinking after 12 and no shadow jets on official business. This operation will be a strict no-fly zone.

helen.walne@inl.co.za