I can't stop thinking about the maggot in my bin

Even MumsNet isn't making me feel better about the situation

It’s 11.11pm and no, I’m not making a wish, I’m drying out my eyes with my Shark Flex Breeze on level 4, no oscillation.

The UK heatwave is meant to finally finish on Wednesday, but it’s already too late for me because there is a maggot in my bin and I cannot cope with the shame of it.

It’s only Tuesday, but I’ve already been accosted by enough tiny creatures to last me a lifetime.

This all started on Sunday. I had been laying on my bed, with my Shark Flex Breeze on level 4, no oscillation, drying out my eyes.

As late morning was heading into late afternoon, I finally forced myself up and somewhere in-between taking a pair of socks out of my bottom drawer and making my bed, a visitor appeared.

I had stepped out of my bedroom and back in when I spotted it.

A ginormous black spider, with a body type that Trinny and Susannah would describe as ‘apple shaped’. Aka a giant belly in comparison to rather svelte arms and legs.

My hand instinctively went to my chest in horror and before I could weigh up if I had the courage to put a glass over it, I had already reached for my Dyson Vacuum.

I had to force myself to call it a vacuum then, because Lucy P always chastises me for calling it a ‘Dyson Hoover’. I think saying Dyson Hoover to her, is the same as when people add an ‘S’ to Asda.

I guess it’s the equivalent of saying something like, my Braun Ninja Creami, which actually is quite embarrassing when I think about it.

Now, unlike my Shark Flexbreeze, my Dyson VACUUM was gifted to me and it might be one of my biggest flexes because I really didn’t want to spend money on something as practical as a hoover or a vacuum. Which is why I’m eternally grateful.

Trusty Dyson Vacuum in hand (I don’t write about hoovers much, so this is possibly my one opportunity to make a big thing of my #gifted vacuum that isn’t a hoover) and I sucked the bowling ball of the spider world right up.

Now, before you come for me, this isn’t my first rodeo. I knew this spider would survive the suction and sure enough, there it was, crawling inside my gifted Dyson vacuum, looking like it had a belly full of at least 16 babies.

I headed to my balcony and ejected it, along with the dust, hair and dead skin that I hadn’t yet emptied out of the hoover tank.

Afterwards, I felt a little distressed. I started searching Reddit for UK spiders with massive bellies.

In hindsight this was a huge mistake as I now keep being recommended spider subreddits and that is something I really want absolutely nothing to do with.

I know it’s just a spider, but the size of it. I can’t forget it. I keep finding myself going back to the same spot in my bedroom at random times of the day, to see if another one has reappeared.

Where did it come from? My sock drawer is a worrying thought, but my bedsheets is one I can’t even fathom.

As I was updating my WhatsApp group chat about my discovery, Lucy P had her own intel to share.

Apparently, in Tooting it was flying ant day and if there’s one thing I hate almost as much as big backed spiders, it’s ant’s with wings.

As I had no paddling pool of my own to sit in, I didn’t give it much thought… until I looked out the window and realised my suburban sky was also full of ants having sex mid-air.

A prisoner in my own home. I shut all the windows and doors and prepared myself and my not gifted Shark Flexbreeze for a binge watch of the new series of Squid Games.

That brings us to tonight. Monday, which also happens to be bin night.

Doing anything in 30 degree un-air conditioned heat is almost impossible, so I reckon it took me 45 minutes in total to a) muster the energy and b) finally put the bins out.

Tonight it’s cardboard and recycling. That’s my favourite bin variation because I always seem to have a lot of both and I like it when someone takes care of my problems for me.

However, I don’t like it, when the lid of my recycling box is covered in the bodies of dead male, wingless ants.

Turns out, regular black ants that you see everyday sans wings, are mostly infertile female workers.

Everything really is political, isn’t it.

Meanwhile, male ants and ‘the young queens’, have something called a ‘Nuptial flight’ aka flying ant day, where they grow wings to have sex in the air with other colonies.

After climax(?) the male ants die soon afterwards, leaving the queens to chew off their own wings and lay eggs.

So, now, in order to put away my recycling because some of us still have morals *cough cough* Leonardo Dicaprio, I have to clear off a load of male ants that sexed themselves to death.

It gets worse however.

You see, I previously didn’t have to move my bins, but I have new neighbours who have a lot of rubbish and unless I carry my bins to the end of my path, the bin men just assume that theirs is enough for both of us.

I think you’re starting to see why bin night is so traumatic for me. Maybe even, why life is.

Next up was my main rubbish bin and little did I know what was waiting for me inside when I carried it down the path.

As I lifted the lid to put my kitchen bin in, I spotted it immediately.

Now, I know that show, don’t tell is a much more effective method of storytelling, but I don’t want to describe it to you because it was a maggot. A maggot in my bin!

Even typing that is reigniting the fear that I’m now unknowingly covered in maggots. That they crawled into my Crocs via the holes that don’t contain Jibbitz and are worming around on my bed as we speak.

Probably talking in high pitched frequencies to the chubby spider that’s returned.

Naturally, I shoved my remaining rubbish load in as fast as I could and slammed the lid back on.

That’s when the shame kicked in.

I looked around. Did anyone see that? Does anyone know I have a maggot in my bin?

After a thorough wash inside, I found myself just standing at the window staring down at the horror show that was below.

I even ended up on a MumsNet forum of people who assured one another that maggots in bins is just something that happens from time to time in summer, but it wasn’t enough to quell the shame.

I kept going back to the window to check. Check for what, I don’t know?

My neighbours with pitchforks and torches? My bin being carried along the road on the back of a million maggots?

What’s even worse is that I have a gardener coming at 8am. Does this sound like the words of someone that could deal with soil? What will she think of me if she arrives and there’s maggots everywhere???

What are the bin men going to say? Will they silently shake their head at me as I watch them open the lid from my window?

I wish there was a live feed bin collection I could follow.

I should get to bed… I need to set an alarm to ensure I have time to leave the country if I wake up to news of a local maggot infestation.

Wish me luck.

P.S. I promise I’m not disgusting, despite having a maggot in my bin.