Fleas, flies, flashlight, freakout

Say it five times fast!  Fleas, flies, flashlight, freakout!!

This is just a teeny, tiny gimpse of the ridiculousness that happens on a daily basis around here.  Fleas, flies, flashlight, freakout!!

It was a dark and stormy night...
Ha.  Just kidding.  "Stormy" would imply that it was raining, which it's not.  Sorry farmers! 

Anyway, it was a mostly normal, regular, non-exciting Sunday night.  Devilishly handsome husband wasn't home yet and I had just picked up Tucker, the fur child, from boarding at our local vet's office after our weekend mini-vacay at the State Fair.

The fur child

I noticed on the drive home that fur child was itchy...like, really itchy.  Like, scratching fur all over the truck, in my purse, up my nose, everywhere kinda itchy.


So I'm driving home, realizing there is clearly something awry with the fur child, and also realizing that the extra-large slurpie I chugged from that interstate gas station is really moving quickly.  Aka good thing I was almost back to the homestead, or else we'd be stopping along the roadside to relieve the too small bladder situation.

Luckily, we where pretty close to home.  I pulled into our driveway, let Tucker-dog out of the truck, and gave him a quick once-over to see what the problem was........

And on his cute little white speckled tummy, I saw this thing.  This tiny, dark brown, insect-like, hopping little menace.

I was a vet-tech in my past life (aka two years ago), and I recognized that little hiefer instantaneously.  The F-word.  That's what it was.  A fffff.  A ffll.  A FLEA!!  And then I saw another, then another, then another.

Then I barfed.

Flea bath!

Not really.  But I wanted too.  Fortunately, the slurpie I just chugged was talking to my bladder loud enough that I only had one thing on my mind.  Now where did I put my keys at? I had just turned off the pick-up, seriously where in the heck could they have gone in the five-minute flea freak out I'd just had?!  They had to be in the truck somewhere...

Normal people have working dome lights in their vehicles.  I've already posted a little bit about the jenkiness of hubby's old beater pick-up...the idea of a functioning dome light is definitely laughable.  Especially when it's dark out and your dog has fleas.  And you have to pee reallllly bad.

But no worries!  IPhone flashlight app to the rescue!!  For about 30 seconds until my phone died due to over-abuse at the state fair.  So there I was: flea infested dog, freaking out, no flashlight, frightfully full bladder, and a dead fone.  I mean phone.  Somehow, an ancient instinct kicked in.  An ancient instinct that allowed our ancestors to fanagle their way into their locked homesteads with no light, surrounded by pests, and an intense need to urinate...which they probably just did outside...which totally makes this all irrelevant...never mind.

Basically, it's important to always know where your hide-a-key resides.  That was make or break in this situation.  By some miracle, I 1) remembered where hubby hid the little bugger, 2) found something tall enough to stand on to reach it, and 3) retrieved said hide-a-key and made it into the house just in the nick of time!     

After certain needs where met, flea infested dog was taken care of, and dead phones where being recharged, I headed to the kitchen to make lunches for Monday.  I'd only been there a few seconds before I noticed the second set of pests that day.  Buzzing around, being annoying, house flies.  It was game over.  Girlfriend was done messin' around.  Time for fly swatter, ninja-karate-fly-butt-kicking time!

And that's when hubby walked in the door.  Just in time for ninja-karate-fly-butt-kicking.  Oh yeah, and my keys where right int he center console of the pick-up...right where I left 'em...whatever. 

Goodnight!