I REMEMBERED!

Ha!  I remembered the last thing I was going to write about earlier, and while it's not a big deal, the fact that I remembered without, like, a week going by makes me happy and I'm going to write about it anyway!  YAY!

Ok, so I've been having the weirdest dreams lately. Most of them are what I think of as "Stress Dreams" which I would categorize as the kind of dreams that are fairly common where people dream they show up to class and realize they have a test and they haven't studied for it, or they have a presentation at work and realize they are unprepared.  I don't remember all of them, but the one that sticks out is that I was taken on one of those TV reality baking shows and was told I had to decorate a cake, and I'd be judged on it, but I had no idea how to decorate a cake.  Looking back, it's actually kind of funny, because I was standing behind a big white cake and completely panicking because I had no idea what to do.  I remember my last thought before waking up was

"Sprinkles! I'll put some f*cking sprinkles on it and nobody will know the difference!"

I'm such a problem solver.

Last night, though, was something else.  In my "second sleep" or the time I went back to sleep after being awake for a few hours, I dreamed I was in my bedroom, still in bed (and it was so realistic, which is what made the dream so upsetting) and my sister ran into the room and pointed at the covers and said "OH MY GOD, IT'S GOT A TAIL!" and a lump in the covers started moving towards me and I jumped on it, thinking there was a mouse under it and I didn't want it to bite me.  So I'm holding this big, wiggling lump of sheets, pinning it underneath me and trying not to let whatever is under there get away, and then she starts yelling at me because of something to do with mom. I don't remember what it was, but I know I had forgotten to do something for her, or I had failed to realize something that had to do with her, and the whole time I'm holding down this...thing...under the covers and so I couldn't move or get away.  I felt so bad for whatever it was I'd done (or not done) and I was panicking because the wiggling vermin under the covers was thrashing around, and it has somehow gotten inside my shirt, but I knew that if I took my hand off of it, it would start running around and I'd lose my mind.  I finally got the thing to stop wiggling and I took my hand off of it, and a cockroack the size of an athletic shoe started climbing out of my pajama top, and that's when I woke up in a blind panic, slapping at the front of my shirt and spitting because the dream roach's antenna had gotten into my mouth. 

It was awful and took almost a minute before my awake brain took over and I realized I wasn't being infested.  I honestly can't understand why I didn't remember this dream earlier to write about it, but in a way I'm glad I didn't because now I've got the heebies pretty badly.

Now, would anyone like to analyze these dreams for me?  I'm not sure why I'm having stress dreams, as I don't think I'm particularly stressed, or why I'm dreaming of roaches bigger than my foot!  Send help!

NOPE

OMG!

No, wait, I don't think you fully got that. 

OH. EM. GEE. Exclamation Point!

One of the "pleasures" of living in the hot and humid south is that we have a certain type of wildlife that thrives in all the nooks and crannies of almost every building, every tree stump, in every tangle of vines and under every rock.  They go by several names: Water Bugs, Palmetto Bugs, the American Cockroach, but usually I just refer to them as the unholy bastard bugs straight from Satan's anus.  I hate them with a passion that I don't think I could adequately put into words, and for your sake, I won't even try.  Just imagine a series of guttural, spitty, choking noises and rude finger gestures and that will be close enough.

During the months when the air is heavy and dense and the sun is shining, these little monsters tend to stay in the nice shady spots outside, except for the ones that find a way to get inside a person's home or place of business, regardless of the amount and strength of the poison that one pays to have squirted about by professionals. They are wiley, and if I'm being truthful about what I believe, malicious and self aware.

Two nights ago, Steve and I were sitting in the living room when Steve suddenly says "What is that?"  The fact that movement caught his attention while he was absorbed in whatever it was he was watching on television should tell you something.  I looked up from my reading and saw what looked like a slipper scrabbling wildly near the door. It had, unfortunately, made it's way through the side of the door where the cat has shredded the weather stripping, leaving a gap. It was possibly the largest waterbug I've ever seen, and trust me, I work in an old building and have seen some shit.  I sat up in my chair far enough to realize that me going after said bug was an impossibility, due to the fact that I'm certain it had the size and strength to tackle me to the ground, and so it became Steve's job to get rid of it.  He did, after a fashion.  I'm not sure if he killed it with the Swiffer he wielded, or if he had to hold it at gunpoint and threaten the life of its children if it didn't leave, (I was cowering in my chair and didn't see) but the mutant bug was driven out of the house and out into the night.  Afterwards I liberally sprayed the doorway with a bug poison supposedly so powerful that it is only required to be applied once a year.  I use it more than that, just in case, because I live in fear of rolling up on one of those bugs in my house.  Our house is old, so yes, it happens occasionally.

I knew that I'd probably be seeing some of that bug's unholy brethren at some point, but I assumed that it would be in the house or in the garage.  I was not expecting to find one of them in my car. 

I don't think I need to state that our cars should be a good place.  Sure, maybe we always run the risk of accidents when we drive them, but aside from that, the interior of our vehicles should be a haven where we can have a bit of quiet after a stressful day, where we can sing to our favorite music loudly and without shame, and where we can unabashedly eat french fries by shoving our faces directly into a greasy paper bag so that we don't get our hands messy.  It should be a safe place, but now my safe space has been ruined.

When I was leaving for work, I opened the door to my car and another huge waterbug scurried around the frame of my door.  I know it wasn't happy to be discovered, because I'm almost positive I heard it curse under it's breath.  I stood frozen, nothing to protect myself with but my soft sided lunchbox, and wondered what to do.  I kicked at it, granted not the best action since I was wearing soft toed shoes, but instead of leaping to the driveway and running towards freedom, it ran across the door frame and disappeared.  It ran so fast I couldn't tell where it went!  I stood there for a moment, wondering if I should just call in sick to work and torch the car to be safe, but that seemed to be a bit excessive.  I still didn't want to get in the car until the bug was found, but unless I felt like disassembling the whole car, I had no choice.  I started kicking the car, hoping that it would scare the little hastared out of hiding, but no giant bug emerged.  I finally had to get in and go. The whole ride to work I just knew that thing would find it's way out of hiding and crawl up my pants leg.  If that had happened, I'd have either wrecked the car, or there would be reports of a pantsless women screaming and running through the church parking lot (although to be fair, I'm sure that happens at least once a week in this neighborhood.) 

I made it to work with no incident and parked my car in a parking spot that I hope remains so exposed to the sun that anything alive in the car will spontaneously combust, but since roaches and the like can withstand nuclear fall out, I'm not sure it will even get uncomfortable.  My car is visible in the security feed, and I keep expecting to see the thing hot wire my car and drive off into the sunset.

So now, here I sit, knowing that today is a Wednesday which means I won't be getting back into the car until almost sundown, and in the shadows of the waning day, I may be getting back into a car where the disgusting vermin is hiding, waiting on me to get inside and shut the door so that it can exact it's revenge on me for my past, bug-killing actions.  If my car is found empty, on the side of the road somewhere between church and home, you'll know the thing attacked and won. Don't let him get away with it!

AVENGE ME!

STUPID NATURE

Do you want to know what happened to us this weekend?

Yellow-jackets! That's what happened to us. 

Stupid, evil, vindictive yellow-jackets.

Do you remember a couple of entries ago, I mentioned that I got stung by a bee while mowing the lawn?  Well, it turned out it wasn't a bee.  Unknown to us, a very large colony of yellow-jackets had built a ground nest near the edge of our property.  It's right up against the property line with our neighbors, so it isn't a place we spend a whole lot of time hanging out and we had no idea  it was there.  The last time I mowed, I guess I just barely disturbed them because I was only stung once, and because Steve said there were some bees hanging around the crepe myrtle, that's what we thought got me.  This time, though, I apparently did more than disturb them.  I must have disturbed them and said something horrible about their mother, if their reaction was any indication!

Since getting stung last time, I was careful to wear blue-jeans when I mowed.  I should have worn tennis shoes, too, but I didn't.  I thought that jeans would be enough, because really, statistically, how often can expect to get stung while mowing your lawn if it's only happened once in 14 years?

So I'm working on the last section of our yard, which is the big part in the front.  I usually start by going around the entire perimeter, and then sectioning it off.  This time, I was doing that, but decided that I needed to go over the same ground since I missed a spot, which was apparently the wrong thing to do.  I hit the nest twice, and as I went over it the second time, they came after me.  The first one got me in the ear!  THE MOTHER-EFFING EAR!  As I sat there, holding my ear, I got stung on my foot, my hand and my calf.  I panicked.  I literally couldn't figure out how to get away.  I realized, way too late that I was on a riding lawnmower, which I then managed to drive into the center of the lawn.  I was still in a panic, so I couldn't figure out how to turn it off, so I just jumped off and ran into the house.  For all I knew at that point, they were still following me.  I ran through the house, stripped off my clothes and I jumped into the shower to drown anything that was still on me.  Poor Steve had no idea what was going on, so he walked over to where I had been and he got swarmed.  While I was in the shower, I heard him running through the house and getting into the other shower.  He'd been stung 11 times on his legs.  He'd still managed to get the lawnmower inside and the garage closed, so points go to Steve in this instance.  We are so lucky that neither one of us is allergic, but we still popped Benadryl just in case.

Y'all, I'd like to say I was stoic and able to deal with the pain with no problem, but I'd be lying.  I always believed I had a pretty high tolerance for pain, but I was proven very, very wrong.  I'd only been stung 4 times, and I think the three on my hand/foot/leg weren't that bad, but it was the one in my ear that nearly drove me insane.  Imagine someone stabbing a needle into your ear and wiggling it around for hours without stopping.  The pain wouldn't back off.  The longer I sat there, the worse it got.  Steve said that his stings hurt, but they weren't that bad.  Me, I just laid down and cried.  I did everything I could think of to help them: we put Neosporin on the stings, we crushed up aspirin applied that, baking soda paste, cortisone cream, but nothing helped.  I finally decided that if I could just go to sleep, I could get away from it.  But I couldn't go to sleep.  My muscles were twitching so bad that I couldn't even doze off.  I tried icing my ear and applying heat to it, but nothing helped.  I even kept trying to take Tylenol and stuff like that, but nothing touched it.  We finally had to go to Target and buy some kind of after sting stuff (that did nothing) and I bought some Z-quil because I figured that if I couldn't go to sleep on my own, I'd drug myself into it.  By the time we got home, my ear was hurting a tiny bit less, but my hand and foot had begun swelling up like balloons.  I did fall asleep, which was a blessing, but I didn't stay asleep for long.  I finally just got up, took the sleeping stuff, and went to sleep for real.  I was going to avoid the pain as much as possible.  That probably doesn't speak well about my coping skills!  Steve said his stings had stopped hurting, but had started to itch like crazy, so he stayed in the living-room all night so that he wouldn't wake me up while he scratched. 

I woke up at around 4:00 that morning, and took more Benadryl, which was not smart on top of all of the other stuff I'd been taking, which made me too drunk to go to church!  Steve was not hurtinganymore, his bites were itchy but he was ok, so he went ahead to church and had to run the sound for me.  I slept for a long, long time.  When I finally woke up, I went into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, and...you guys, my ear was 3 times bigger than an ear should be!  It was so gross!  I had a cauliflower ear, for real! It was so swollen that I couldn't even bend my earlobe!  My foot and hand were also swollen up so badly that they didn't look like they belonged on my body.  You know how babies have those little fat, boneless looking hands and feet?  That is what I had on one side of my body.  When I'd walk, my foot looked like a water balloon being compressed.  YUCK! So much yuck!  I WAS A MUTANT! 

 

Artist's Rendition 

I hid in the house for the rest of the day like I was the Elephant Man or something.  I probably could have gone to church that night, the pain was all but gone, but I was afraid everyone would be staring at my ear.  Seriously, it was like freak-show big.  It was still really swollen when I went to bed, but it did go down a lot during the night so I was able to come to work today. Besides, I can stand three people looking at my ear, but not dozens and dozens of them looking.  

At any rate, now we are mainly just very itchy.  My hand a foot are still swollen, but that is getting better.  I'll be glad when I can wear a normal shoe again, though.  We'll be lucky if Steve has legs left after he finishes scratching them. He really did get stung a lot, but he was able to stand the pain much better than me.  I felt like such a weenie.  

So, that was my weekend!  I hope yours was much better! :)

WHO YOU GONNA CALL?

OK, just in case you think I'm about to talk about ghosts,  I gotta stop you right there.  Sorry, this is about something much creepier and much more disturbing than disembodied souls.

My house is currently crawling (quite literally in spots) with lady bugs.

EFFING LADY BUGS, Y'ALL!

What the heck is going on?

See, when I think about lady bugs, I imagine cute, happy little bugs like this:

That happy little critter might come into your house, fly around a bit and then ask politely to go outside again.  Of course you'd oblige and let the poor thing out. 

No, what I came home to today was some kind of disgusting, creeping, living wallpaper pattern made of bugs. There were dead ones littering the floor around the doorway. My curtains were infested with them, and they were all over the wall and ceiling around my front windows.  I imagine that one of these vermin found a way to get in and invited all of her friends over for a house party.

Artist's Representation, of course.

Ladybugs are one of the less terrifying bugs, but there were so many of them!  Normally,  I'd run screaming from the house, throwing a hastily contrived Molotov cocktail through the window as I went.  However, I actually surprised myself this time.  I was hungry, tired, and honestly, I didn't know what to do about the sheer amount of bugs in my house.  They also seemed to be sitting very still, only on the window side of the room, with the exception of one or two brave souls that would fly around and bump their heads on the ceiling for a while until they went back and settled on the curtains again.  So I did a very Un-Kelly thing and just sat down to eat my dinner instead of freaking out.  I mean, I kept my eyes on them, just to make sure one of them didn't do a cannonball into my root beer or anything, but they were being cool and I was being cool.

After I finished my dinner, I remembered there was a book I wanted to get into, so I got it out and started reading, actually forgetting for a while that my living room was currently playing party central to a swarm of insects.  In fact, I got so wrapped up in the book that I didn't notice when the light began to fade outside, which confused the bugs and sent them all sailing through the air over to the lamp across the room. I guess I must have seen something out of the corner of my eye, because when I looked up, they were just -shudder- flying everywhere.  

 

In the immortal words of Will Smith in the blockbuster movie Independence Day: Aw, hell naw.

I had to do something!  I knew I couldn't just let them run loose in the house, because I didn't want one of them getting into the bedroom and hiding out until the lights go off, possibly giving it an opportunity to crawl into my ear and have babies.  Nope!  I also didn't want to just spray bug poison all over the living room and furniture, because Butler isn't very smart and he licks the floor for no reason and I was afraid he'd die.  So I did the only thing I could think of.  I got the long barreled, Dyson handheld vacuum cleaner, also known in our house as the Bug Sucker.

When you absolutly, positively have to suck up every last

 mother f***** in the room, accept no substitutes.

We didn't actually intend to use this thing as a bug sucker when we bought it, but the long reach and superior suction of this fine machine, allows us to get rid of terrifying bugs that we can't otherwise get near without screaming like little girls (I'm looking at you too, Steve.) 

I apologized to Butler in advance, because he hates any kind of vacuum, and I went into the dining room closet and pulled it off of the charger.  

I'm not going to lie: for a moment, standing there holding the Dyson, I felt a little bad ass.  I caressed the trigger, running my other hand lightly over the barrel, and giving those unwelcome little buggers the evil eye.  At that moment, I was Sarah Conner, dangit, and I was about to do some terminating!

 

That feeling didn't last very long though, because as soon as I walked back into the living room, they saw me and started to fly.  In return, I started running and screaming.  It was very undignified.  Butler couldn't figure out what to do.  He was torn between being terrified of the vacuum, wanting to stay there with me, and knowing that if he left the living room, he'd be forced to walk on the slippery kitchen floor, which he hates almost as much as the vacuum.  So he did the only thing he could.  He hid in his kennel and watched as I ran back and forth through the room, screaming, and trying to suck flying bugs out of the air.  

It was then that I realized that I wasn't Sarah Conner, and this wasn't The Terminator.  No, this was Ghostbusters.  I was Peter Venkman, and I was trying to shoot a flying, green blob out of the ceiling of a fancy, New York ballroom with very little luck.

I looked into the trap, Ray.

I managed to suck up a lot of them, still screaming, still running around and scaring the hell out of the dog.  I had to go outside and dump the canister into the grass, knowing that I was only giving the live ones a chance to get back into the house to torture me, but I thought I'd gotten most of them.  Unfortunately, once I got back inside, I saw that more had crawled out of the curtains to take their place.  Now I have no idea what to do, and about a billion insects are making a home in the living room.

Anyone mind if Butler and I come and spend the night?

Ick.