"How's my favourite flea-bag?"

I know you've all been just DYING to hear about the invasion of the blood-suckers going on in my home since I mentioned it the other day.



I hate fleas.

I had no idea how much I hate fleas.

Mr. Man was working at home on Monday and we'd made a list of things to do including stopping by the pet store to pick up a couple of flea collars for Toad and Fox (our cats - their names are a whole different story but they are NOT named after other species of animals I SWEAR! Not on purpose...really.....) BECAUSE I'd seen a flea or two hopping around the house.

Oh the naivete that was me. siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh

We headed out for our errands. It was kind of fun to be all together during the morning running errands as a family! Mr. Man opted for the pet store first - why make poor Little Miss wait that extra time to go scare look at the animals??

Entering the store we were greeted friendly-like and off to see the pets we headed! Little Miss was in her glory and I left her with Mr. Man to go look for flea collars. Which I couldn't find. So I asked our friendly greeter, who took me AWAY from the collar area over to the fleas-are-evil-here's-how-to-kill-them area. Oy. A little overwhelming for someone who's only seen a couple of fleas, right?

THANK GOODNESS I'm a chatty person. THANK GOODNESS. I can't imagine I may have just wandered in, grabbed a couple of collars, and wandered out.

Explaining about our two darling outdoor cats and I wanted flea collars I mentioned that I HAD seen a couple of fleas in the house. And her eyes WIDENED as a look of shock and horror flashed across her face. "If you've SEEN them, then there are a lot more than just two."

WHAT?!?!?!?!

So then, the world's greatest sales person proceeded to wander me through the ins-and-outs of the fleas-are-evil-here's-how-to-kill-them section and recommend different holy-crap-your-house-has-been-completely-overrun products. And we eventually left, after spending way too much money (I HATE FLEAS) feeling a little extra itchy and a little overly disgusted.

AND I finally understood why I have all these bug bites ALL OVER MY LEGS - I thought it was WEIRD I was getting so many at soccer each week, and they were weird for mosquito bites, but seriously? I'm an IDIOT, apparently. I am COVERED, head-to-toe in flea bites and had NO CLUE.

I feel I need to interject and explain my ridiculous SMRT-behaviour with the outdoor cats and the flea bites and just the whole thing - I've had cats for ages, but I've NEVER, until last year, had outdoor cats. And I've NEVER dealt with fleas in the house. My mom told me that she did once when we were really little but I definitely have no recollection of that. ALSO the WHOLE NEIGHBOURHOOD is FULL of outdoor cats, and none of them wear flea collars! I thought it was WEIRD but then thought, gee, maybe we don't have fleas, or at least not too BAD, in this area. I've HEARD my neighbours talking about flea-collar-less-and-flea-free animals at length!! Why would these magic rules not apply to ME and MY cats, too?? COME ON!

Okay, okay. I'm an idiot. Just, accept that and move on.

SO...... I came home and got started. I vacuumed Little Miss's room to suck up what fleas I could and rattle the eggs so they open so the poison gets inside to kill the nasty little things. I stripped the bed, sprayed the carpet, the mattress, stuffed the comforter, pillow, and blankets in the dryer on high heat, washed everything, DRYed everything.... I did our bed next (I've been SLEEPING with these things for who knows HOW long?!?! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) I grabbed all our pillows from the bed, couches, etc., and stuffed them into the big freezer downstairs (actually, I think there's still some down there...) to freeze them to death (muahaha!! NO mercy!) I vacuumed and cleaned and sprayed...our house is a whopping 950 square feet and I've gone through two-and-a-half cans of spray that are supposed to do 1000 square feet each....the curtains, the couches, the carpets, the baseboards.... I took the bathmat out of the bathroom to put it through the laundry (and drown/cook them to death - DIE fleas DIE!) - ohmigosh I couldn't BELIEVE how many fleas I found in my BATHROOM after I took their hiding place away!

EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW EW!!

I plan to do the whole flea-ridding process again in a couple of weeks to ensure we got ALL the eggs, larvae, any remaining fleas (which, if I MISSED any by that time will have spawned literally hundreds of thousands of offspring - have I mentioned how much I LOATHE FLEAS? AURGH!) because this SUCKS.

And next year? Yeah. The cats are DEFINITELY getting that magic-keep-the-fleas-off-of-me shot at the VET in the spring to save me all this money and aggravation!!

On a GOOD note - all the flea-dealings have had me so flipped out and stressing I've done well with running this week! hahaha I NEED to run to work out the angst I feel every time I see a black piece of fluff on the floor.... ;)

We DO accept kill-the-fleas-at-Red's-house prayers by ALL means, or any anti-flea tribal dancing...whatever it is you do - HELP!