The Run

Me and my ten year old shoes. Broke in, broke down, falling apart.

Me and Bill* walkjogrun, leaving behind ringing telephones, piles of dishes, dirty laundry, questions and demands of a busy day.

Copper beetles congregate under the lampposts at each corner. I crush them, oblivious til their little bodies crunch under my feet. Stray cats run for their lives and tremble in my wake.

She, the germaphobe, sweats to the oldies and sometimes Roald Dahl comes along for a quick constitutional. James and the Giant Peach, The BFG, Fantastic Mr. Fox: the gang's all here.

Just me and the harvest moon and constellations I can't name but I still know like long lost friends.

Breathless, wheezing, exhausted but somehow rejuvenated.

----*Bill Withers, that is, cause ain't no sunshine when I'm gone.

Just like "Bugs Gone Wild"

It all started with the ants.

Ok, wait a sec. This is Sarah. Not the crazy psychopath in Marcus' Story. No, really. The story is here. The following is true, as hard as this may be to believe.

So let's try this again.

Ahem.

It all started with the ants.

They came traipsing into our living room, acting like they owned the place. Heck, maybe they really do own the place. Nevertheless, we're bigger than they are and so we will kill them and claim it as our own. So the ants came marching one by one, hurrah, hurrah and ate our crumbs and walked over our computer screens and infested our carpet and we all went marching down. To the end. Of the earth. To get out. Of the rain.

And finally Steven had enough. He figured out where they were getting in (a teeny tiny hole at the bottom of our balcony door) and we crammed it full of bay leaves. So that stopped them. For a while. Then they discovered the front door. They crawled up the outside wall (two stories, remember) across the hallway ceiling and down to our front door where they weaseled their way in. Persistent little buggers.

So again, Steven had enough. He went to Wal-Mart, the source of all things evil (like bug spray) and came home with ant poison in a convenient aerosol can. He sprayed. He sprayed and he sprayed some more. Ants died by the bajillion. Staggering, hands on hearts, dramatically exclaiming "Goodbye, cruel world" before falling belly-up to be swept up by our vacuum.

And the Curtis' rejoiced.

And celebrating our good fortune, we sprinkled bay leaves at the balcony door the discourage any new freeloaders.

And noticed the wasps. They were building a condo on our balcony ceiling. Swimming pool, fully furnished, pets extra.

"Call the landlord!" I yelled at Steven.

To which he replied, "Okay."

While he was thinking, "I can handle this."

So when I went to work he knocked it down with a broom handle.

To which the wasps replied, "Meh, we didn't like that house anyway."

Which is why there are approximately 2,334,813,907 wasps on the balcony now and they're building the playboy mansion, wasp-sized on the side of our place.

Poo on varmits. At least they're not spiders.

Kentucky Critters (part two)

So there I was, just reading in the living room. I had just gotten out of the shower and was all wrapped up in my big, fluffy robe. I had a kettle of water on the stove for a nice cup of tea. The sun was shining in through the windows, the hubby was taking a nap, and all was right with the world.

Or so I thought.

As I turned a page in my book, my eyes happened upon a dark shape on my sleeve. An M & M? Maybe a chocolate chip? NO! It was a TICK! I gasped in horror, jumped up off the couch and stripped off the robe. I carefully bent over the material and looked at where the tick had been. It wasn't there! A shudder ran over me as I realized it may still be on me! I ran to the bedroom, waking my unsuspecting husband with nonsensical gibbering. I'm sure he was shocked to find his nearly nude wife slapping at herself and waving her hair all over. After he realized that I wanted him to check my hair and make sure the tick wasn't there sucking out all my blood, he came to his senses, checked me out and assured me that I was, in fact, not being eaten by a mini vampire. And then he went back to sleep.

But then where WAS the monster?

I crept back into the living room and poked around some more in the folds of my robe. There it was! The little devil was trying to hide! Now normally I am a person who'd rather live and let live. I rescue frogs that accidentally find themselves in campground bathrooms or spiders that others would squish. But this TICK was in my HOUSE! On ME! It had to go. I ran to the kitchen and got a butcher knife. I tried sawing the tick in half, but it refused to die. I scooped it up on the blade of the knife and carried it to the kitchen. There, I placed it in the sink and tried to saw some more. Either my hands were shaking or he was wearing some kind of armor, because he REFUSED TO BE CUT! I washed him down the drain and poured an entire kettle of boiling water down after him. I went and got my robe and considered throwing it away or burning it, but settled for washing it with about an entire bottle of bleach.

Overkill? I think not.