Infested
There’san old Mitch Hedburg joke about how you never hear of any good infestations.“My apartment is infested with koala bears. It’s the cutest infestation ever.Much better than cockroaches. I turn the lights on and a bunch of koala bearsscatter. I'm like, come back! I want to hold one of you, and feed you a leaf.”
It’strue that “infestation” is never associated with anything positive, and assomeone in the midst of a flea infestation, I’m more than willing to vouch forthis.
Aflea infestation is terrible. By itself, it’s just awful. I mean, there arefleas everywhere – do I really need to elaborate on why this is horrendous?And, almost as bad as the fleas is the accompaniment to every infestation – thejudging.
Noone wants to believe that you get to the level of flea infestation without somegross misconduct. Whether it’s a messy kitchen or karmic-retribution for priorbad acts, people want to believe a flea infestation doesn’t just happen out ofthe blue.
Forthose of you wondering, I am a good housekeeper. My house is neat and orderly,and I am in love with my sanitizing steam mop. I am also a good pet owner(despite what happened during Cat Watch 2010, but we’ll get to that tomorrow).My dog does not have fleas -- it’s just my house, and I have devoted myself totheir eradication:
- Vacuumedthe entire house and burned the contents of the vacuum cleaner afterwards.
- Fleabombed my house. Twice.
- Fleabombed my car and vacuumed it afterwards.
- Burnedthe cat’s bed. (I felt like I was in some required school reading about ScarletFever epidemics in the 18th century, but I did it anyways.)
- Hadthe exterminator out. Twice.
- Takenthe flea bomb the exterminator left me, set it off and thrown it under thehouse grenade-style in an effort to take out the possible offenders.
- Foggedthe inside of my house, for the fifth time, with the prescription-strength bugkiller left behind by the exterminator.
Ispend more time talking to my exterminator than I do speaking to some membersof my own family, I might be barren because of how many pesticides I haveencountered in the last two weeks and I haven’t had access to all of my clothesin what seems like a mini-eternity. (Oh, short-sleeved cardigans, how I missyou.) But all of this is to no avail.
Thereare still fleas. Fleas that like to bite me. For awhile, I was going to bed apinkish hue from all of the calomine lotion on my body. I don’t know what theyfeed on (other than me, occasionally). I don’t know where they’re coming from –all of the animals are at the SO’s house. And despite what anyone tells you,rosemary is not a flea-deterring plant because it is the only thing I’m capableof growing, and it flourishes right near the back door/main flea point ofattack.
Iam so tired, and I don’t know when I’ll be able to enjoy the inside of my houseagain – if ever. Please send positive thoughts into the universe for me. Andvery, very bad thoughts about fleas.