A few years ago, my friends and I were playing football in the street when the ball made its way towards a drainage ditch (one of the ones that looks like a large slit in the
concrete on the side of the street).
Well, per the rules of street baseball carrying over to street football, "
you hit it, you get it" (granted, the ball wasn't "hit" but you get the idea). My task was to retrieve the ball. Upon looking into the drain, we witnessed a good 100+
spider webs and a huge variety of insects.
The new task became the
cleansing of the drain, even the Orkin Man would have run in fear from this ordeal. I ran down the street to my house and grabbed a 40oz can of hair spray (one of the foot tall ones) and a match book. A small pile of leaves was created near the entrance of the drain and a fire lit. Using the
hairspray as a makeshift
blow torch, we fried the ugly little SOBs.
The
football was retrieved undamaged and the game finished. The downside - I spend the next three months with the nickname "
Ladybug Killer".