Nerdistan

Summers here in Texas can be brutal! The intense heat,
the humidity. Not a summer passes without hearing of at least
one person collapsing from heat exhaustion. I am fortunate to
possess what every Texan aspires to own: air conditioning. Now
that might seem as mundane as, say owning an indoor toilet, but
truth be told, there’s still many people here in Texas today who
do not have A/C. In fact, until I was thirteen, I also lived in
a house with no A/C.

But I digress from the subject of this entry, which is FLEAS. I
only mention that about the heat here in Texas as an example of
however bad it may be, it does not even come within spitting
distance of the horrors of FLEAS.

See, with the coming of summer, the heat and humidity, we also
get, you guessed it, FLEAS. Humans might dislike excessive heat,
but these blood-sucking creatures LOVE the heat. It’s their
breeding time. People may do most of their conceiving during the
winter months, but not FLEAS! Oh no, they like it hot,
apparently a fan of the movie.

Anyways, we have three cats, one inside cat and two outside cat.
Now, dealing with these fleas every year, you’d think that we
would have become smarter about it. But no, each June when the
FLEAS start hatching, we do nothing to take any precautions
until it’s too late. What can I say? We’ve slept since last
summer.

So, our outside cats pick up the fleas, and presents them to our
inside cat. Yes, I know what you’re thinking: Why don’t you keep
your outside cats outside? Like I said, the FLEAS only
get bad in early summer. The rest of the year they are not a
problem; so we forget their existence until, you guessed it,
it’s too late!

For the last two weeks, I have been cleaning my house much more
than normal. I’ve been vacuuming my WHOLE house every
day! Constantly shaking flea powder on the inside cat, Brat. I
should just throw her fleabag butt out the door, but she’s just
too pretty! A holy terror for sure (hence the name) but
beautiful nonetheless. Besides, she’s just a baby still, and
it’s not her fault she has FLEAS. Poor thing, she runs and tries
to hide whenever she sees me coming toward her now!

So, back to cleaning. My house SHINES, it SPARKLES! Not a
dustbunny anywhere. Martha Stewart would be proud. But the FLEAS
remain. I’ve spent at least fifty dollars on flea and ant death
powder to put on carpets and floors. The darn things won’t sit
still long enough to be killed. They jump and jump and jump all
over my SPARKLING house, evading the death powder. How
inconsiderate is that? My daughter, complaining of killer dust
clouds in the house, ran away to a friend’s house last weekend
where she could, presumably, breathe without gasping.

But still they’re here.

I was tired. I was discouraged. I was just about to admit defeat
and remove myself to another lodging and let the FLEAS take over
this house.

THEN the fleas crossed the line. All the time I had been engaged
in open warfare with the FLEAS, I had not felt any
personal animosity towards them. They did their best to
suck my blood; I did my best to stop them. Just the way of
nature, right? I didn’t hate them; not them personally.
Of course, I hated it when they bit me, but I didn’t hate
them, even though I was doing my best to kill them.

But then, like I hinted at above, they crossed the line. They,
in their arrogance and perceived superiority, committed an error
they will soon regret. One of their bloodsucking soldiers,
either ignorant of or completely disregarding the rules of
warfare with humans, that is, to stay within the bounds of feet
and ankles, decided to reconnaissance my son’s ear. He quickly
paid for his transgressions.

But it does not end with only the one transgressor dying a
horrible death (being squashed between my fingernails). Oh no!
Because now my blood is boiling! My hatred is rampaging! I will
hunt down every single flea and make them ALL pay for the sins
of the one!

DEATH TO ALL FLEAS!