Euwwww!

Right now, my walk-in pantry looks like this:

Utterly empty and squeaky clean. Aaaand, right outside my pantry it looks like this:

Utterly chaotic and messy. Because yesterday morning in the pantry I found dozens and dozens of critters that looked like this:

Can't see him so well? Here's a closeup:

It's a Flour Beetle, only about as big as two pencil tips, held together. He and about a hundred or so of his closest friends were partying in my rice and pasta and cruising around looking for places to expand the festivities. Ugh!

So yesterday I pulled every single frickin' thing out of the pantry, opened every box, peered in every bag, and wiped down every single can and bottle. I tossed out tons of open crackers, rice, pasta, and cereals. It took hours and hours to undo the damage. I worked up quite a sweat--that's why this photo below is out of focus. I literally couldn't see, from all the sweat rolling into my eyes!:

I used a lot of soap and hot water, and scrubbed down every single surface of the pantry, even the undersides of shelves:

I followed up by wiping down everything I'd just washed with disinfecting wipes. Usually I don't use this kind of product, but it is part of my earthquake emergency stuff:

While I worked like a mad thing, the pugs cowered in the corners. They were so confused: Mom is hollering and shrieking, but not at us. Who, then?

 Him:

All the articles I read said these bugs are very hard to get rid of, so I'm obsessively checking my pantry to see if any more emerge. I don't want to restock it before I'm sure I've wiped out every last trace of the beetles.

And then, I think I'm going to store a lot of my starches and carbohydrates in clear plastic boxes from now on:

 Bed, Bath & Beyond or amazon.com is gonna make quite a killing off me, this weekend.