Fleas and Wasps and Mice, Oh My!

It's been one of those weeks. I'm sure you've all had those. The kind where you want to look up at the sky and cry, 'why me?!' possibly while tearing your hair out.

It started with a text message from my sister, letting me know that her dog (and Maddie's favourite playmate) had fleas. This was most distressing, not only because I adore my little nephew dog, but also because Maddie had played with him two days ago. Could she possibly have given him the fleas? And if she hadn't, it was entirely possible he'd given them to her. I checked her over and couldn't find any, but she's black and they'd be mighty difficult to spot, so, I decided to err on the side of safety and headed to the pet store for a flea treatment.

Little did I realize, that stuff is really toxic! I had to take my sweet baby outside into a well ventilated area, apply the goo to between her shoulder blades and avoid contact with her until it dried. Hmmm, well that's all well and good, except that it wouldn't dry. I'm attempting to keep her off the couch while not touching her and she'd gone doe-eyed and sad, completely unaware of why I'm suddenly shunning her love and refusing to let her onto her favourite nap spot all while I'm texting my sister to find out when the stupid goo will absorb so I can stop this heart breaking struggle. Her response? It doesn't. Her dog is still greasy with  it and she put the goo on yesterday. Great! I'm pondering the thoroughly awful evening ahead of me while rereading the flea package again when I hear buzzing. LOUD buzzing. While taking Maddie outside to douse her with poison, I've let a gigantic wasp into the house.

As most of you know by now, I'm terrified of wasps. Childishly, ridiculously so. All the breath went out of my body as I watched its yellow, torpedo shaped body hover about the lights, reaching blindly for Maddie's collar as I dragged her with me into the bedroom. I'm now attempting to keep her off the bed while phoning my husband, leaving hysterical messages that I've let one of those yellow demons into the house and he has to come home and deal with it now. He finally calls me back, and with a heavy sigh asks if it's really necessary that he drive all the way home from the gym right this second to deal with a bug in the house.

"Of course it's necessary! The dog is covered with poison, we're trapped in the bedroom and that wasp is waiting out there to eat my soul!"

There's another heavy sigh and my very unimpressed husband comes home to kill it. Excellent. Problem solved. At the end of the evening I finally let Maddie up on the bed, wrap her in an old blanket and we move on. Several days go by and her hair is finally almost back to normal. But wait! Our troubles aren't over yet. Last night the three of us (dog, husband and myself) were hanging out in the living room, when I thought I saw something move out of the corner of my eye. Now, I often think I see something out of the corner of my eye, so I didn't pay too much attention. That is, until it went scurrying back under the couch at lightning speed. Oh yes. A mouse had just sprinted under the couch where I was sitting.

I scared the shit out of my husband as I suddenly launched into an impressive string of expletives ending with "a mouse just ran under the f*cking couch!!" Once we got his heart beating again, he started setting traps and I started cleaning like a whirlwind. I was in the cupboards with bleach, transporting the contents of every unchewed bag and box into a sealed tupperware container and scrubbing down the kitchen. Finally, my husband got me calmed down enough to go to bed, but I didn't sleep until 3:00AM, after I'd covered the registers and shoved a blanket into the crack under the door.

The mouse was caught the next day, luckily while I was out (I really didn't want to hear that tell-tale snap), but I won't be relaxing until those traps stay clear for another week or so. And we definitely won't be putting any of them away until we're through that fall home finding period when all the mice seem to attempt to come indoors.

So, to sum up, this past week has been like a series of plagues, and as much as I don't want winter to ever get here, I am looking forward to the peace it brings from pestilence. Because the only creatures I want in my house are the ones I've invited, and I don't recall sending out any invitations to wasps, fleas or mice.

*Side note: Since writing this, wasps have built a nest directly above our back door and I just found a grasshopper in the house. So... the plague continues.