Close to Home by John McPherson for October 01, 2016

Good morning, Vagabonds. A few years ago, I opened my canister of oatmeal to find what looked like hundreds of tiny, tiny ant I brought the canister to the NY Museum of Natural History, where I had been in email contact with the entomologist, Dr. Sorkin. He looked inside with a magnifying glass and, too my amazement, told me they were beetles! They were so small they looked like baby ants. Dr. Sorkin took the canister for further study. I assumed the beetles came with a huge bag of oatmeal that I had bought at Cost-co and transferred to the canister, ironically because I didn’t want the large open bag of oatmeal exposed to roaches.

Yesterday, I opened another canister of oatmeal for the 1st time in months (because of my diabetes I didn’t want to add sugar to my oatmeal and so avoided eating oatmeal. Again, I saw tiny beetles trying to crawl out of the top of the canister and immediately re-sealed it. I assume the oatmeal was from the same bag that I had bought in Cost-co – too late to contacts Costco: I had disposed of the original bag with its serial number.

My question – and perhaps some will know the answer – if I throw the canister down the shoot of my apartment building’s recycling closet, the beetles may get out, infest other areas and multiply. If I throw the oatmeal into my toilet it may not only clog my toilet but the beetles will fly out and infest my apartment. I can’t burn the canister (not only because some may consider it cruel to burn the insects alive) but I don’t want to start a fire in my enclosed area.

What shall I do?