Meet Mr. Catangui

Shelly suggested recently that I write about some of the interesting people we meet. I'll start with Mr. Catangui, the exterminator who came to the house today.

We have had a couple areas of the roof -- the eves, or the overhang, actually -- fall off recently, and we, and our landlord, wanted to make sure the damage wasn't caused by termites. The contractor who fixed the areas said it was just water damage, but you never know.

So Mr. Catangui (ka-tan-ghee) and his crew of three showed up this morning to check on the house. Mr. Catangui is probably in his late 50s or early 60s, who told me, immediately after confirming that, yes, I am an American, that he has a son who is a professor in South Dakota and that, just last year, he drove across Iowa on his way to South Dakota from Chicago. And, he said, he has a friend in Manila who is also from Iowa, so there was plenty to talk about while his crew inspected the house (and found no termites) and sprayed for roaches.

"But your house is very clean," Mr. Catangui said. "I don't see any roaches at all."

"Yeah, but they -- thank you, that's very nice -- but yeah, we do have a few roaches," I said. "We see one every few days, especially since our cat hasn't been home to torture them."

"Well, then, let's spray," he said. It's not like he was going to disagree, since he'd be earning some cash for doing so.

Turns out that Mr. Catangui, who was wearing a leather Harley Davidson cap, also recently spent some time in Washington, DC -- near Maryland, we established -- on vacation. After trading Washington tourism tips, we chatted about the poultry business; his son, who is an entomologist studying West Nile Virus; and his grandson, who will be heading to Florida next month to play Little League Baseball for a couple of weeks. He was a very friendly guy to talk to, and very interesting.

And our house is now, once again, cockroach-free.