Something Weevil This Way Comes

Last night, I decided to prepare a very delicious looking pasta dish that was like pasta carbonara, only with brussel sprouts instead of bacon and will less fat and more veggies. And I was using my favorite pasta shape, those curly tubes that I can never remember the name of. About halfway through the pasta cooking time, I noticed that these little black things had floated to the surface of the water. This had never happened to me before, so I fished them out of the water, put them in my hands, and discovered that they were weevils. Ew ew ew ew ew. More deterred by the thought of an infestation than by the thought of eating bugs (I'd been on the go all day and was really hungry!), I googled "Can you eat pasta with weevils in it?" The general consensus on the internet was "Yes, you'll probably get extra protein, but who'd want to eat food that had bugs in it, weirdo? What kind of disgusting freak are you?"

"But what if you've already cooked it? What if you don't have time to make anything else or enough money to go out to eat? What if you're tired?" I wanted to say back to these internet naysayers. But disgusted by the thought of infestation, I proceeded to clean out my entire kitchen and throw away any food that could possibly have weevils in it (beans, flour, raisins, 2 boxes of pasta, lentils, pecans, etc). It was a bummer and I was hungry. I couldn't help wondering what I'd done wrong? I keep my kitchen relatively clean, clean my stovetop at least twice a week, and throw away any food that's gone bad. I'm pretty sure the weevils were in some of the food when I bought it, but I'm not sure what and it's creeping me out. But I guess the moral of this story is that weevils, like head lice, can happen to anyone. I'm not sure what lesson I've learned from this, besides having my trust in the US food system completely shaken. Seriously, how to I know that what I'm buying won't contain little bugs? Is it safer to buy organic, or will that just mean it's more likely to contain bugs? Is it better to buy things in smaller packaging, or does it all come from the same weevil-infested pasta company?

I have no idea. If this had happened to me in Kentucky, I wouldn't have batted an eyelash. I had so many domestic things to deal with, like leaky sinks, stapling plastic to windows, making sure the pipes didn't freeze and making sure Sadie was healthy, that I wouldn't have batted an eyelash at an infestation. In fact, I did have one, when I first got Sadie and she had fleas all over her face. I would scratch her head and see bugs crawling around her eyes. It's terrible when you have a baby animal that is covered in bugs. But we dealt with the fleas and Sadie forgave me when I tried to give her a bath and blow dry her in order to get rid of them.

And I dealt with the weevils and I'm pretty sure they're gone now. I'm going to enact a personal "Look before you cook" policy. And I'm never going to ask the internet for advice about bug consumption ever again.