Me versus THEM

It began on Monday.

I was taking the dog out for the last time of the night and it was just sitting there on the dark green carpet of my sunroom.  He wasn’t very big.  Still he was there.  Just sitting there doing nothing (this seems to be a recurring theme in my life; that’s for another blog).

How do I know he was a “he.”  It’s not like I was going to pick him up and check.  OH HELL NO.  I know this was a “he” because I have an instinctive distaste for the “he”s of the world these days.  I’m not real sure where it came from, but it’s there.  I can feel it crawling around inside my guy like a taco from a street vender.

I don’t mind “them” as friends.  I don’t mind them to talk with and laugh with and do things with.  I seem to mind them in my house, using up my space.  Yeah, I know:  there’s some psychological shit going on up there in my head in regards to this—another blog.  And here he was in my house.  Not just in my house, but in my sunroom, my most favorite of rooms in my house if you don’t count my writing room with all it’s cool stuff.

The dog was outside, the cat was no where to be seen.  I confess I considered letting one of them at this invader.  For a split second.  I’m a coward like that.  But, he wasn’t very big.  So I stepped on him and squished him.  Picked up his remains with a  single paper towel.

I felt pretty brave as I stuck those remains in the trash.  It was Monday, the trash had just come.  The remains sank to the bottom of the bag.  For good measure, I drank a Mike’s Lemonade and tossed the empty bottle into the trash on top of the now crumpled paper towel with held the body.

I slept well.

Until Tuesday.

On Tuesday I went to let the dog out.

There was another one.

I was barefoot.

This one was a little bigger.

He was sitting in the corner between a shadow and the light.  Like I wouldn’t see him there.

But I was barefoot.  I used three paper towels.  I moved fast and slammed the towels into him.  I hurt my hand.  The floor under the green carpet of the sunroom is concrete.  But, you know, a girl has to make sure something’s dead.

I wrapped up the paper towels and squeezed them tightly.  I wanted to make sure he knew I meant business as his guts squirted out into the paper towel.

I took the body to the trash.  But this was Tuesday and the garbage in the trash can would leave the body not at the bottom of the trash, but a little closer to getting out.  I mean, I was SURE he was dead.  But you know, it was kind of close.

So, I just took the trash bag out to the garage.  I mean, it’s not like wasting one trash bag extra this week is really going to break me.

So, yeah, two nights in a row.  But you know, I’m a big girl and I shook it off.

On Wednesday night, it was just a nagging thought in the back of my mind.

I don’t know why the dog didn’t go straight to the door to go out like normal.  Why she stood there with her little stub of a tail wagging like crazy like we were playing some kind of game by looking closely at the floor, turning circles to make sure they weren’t coming up behind me.  This isn’t a game, dog.  It’s NOT.  I controlled my vigilance to keep from creeping out the Rottweiler.  No need to over-react.

I let her out and got the flashlight to check the corners of the room.  There was number three.  Staring at me from the far corner of the room.  His beady eyes staring at me.  He wasn’t hard to spot when I looked in the right place.  Hell, he was bigger than Tuesday and cast a frickin’ shadow!

He took about 10 sheets of paper towels.  Okay maybe give or take ten more.  I’m not really sure.  Counting wasn’t important.  Containing the kill took precedence.  Besides, what’s a roll of paper towels.  It’s not going to break me.

I admit I was a little uncomfortable putting it in the trash bag.  I kind of shoved it towards the bottom.  Had to drink three bottles of Mike’s Hard Lemonade to throw on top of the body and weight it down.  I was planning on going to bed, but instead I got on the internet, convinced that something else was at play here.  What kind of things were these guys?  Why were they invading my space? 

Let’s just say that surfing the web for pictures of these guys does not make for a peaceful night of rest.

So on Thursday, I went to let the dog out and I’m thinking about them invading my space.  I go out into the sunroom cautiously, carefully watching each step.  The dog is prancing around me thinking we’re going to play.

We’re not.

I look all around the ground.  I see nothing.  Hell, I even laughed at myself for being stupid and paranoid.  I let the dog out.  Turned around.

He was there!  On the wall.  Just sitting there like he owned the place.

Thursday was bigger than Wednesday.  Unacceptably big.  Scary big.  You know size does seem to matter and this thing was big enough that I wasn’t getting anywhere near it.  I found some spray.  I sprayed it, until the sunroom got kind of foggy.  It shrunk up immediately and fell limp to the floor.

Still, I wasn’t sure it was dead.  I didn’t want to get close to the body.  And I really couldn’t trust just one sheet of paper towel, because my vision was kind of blurry.  I used up a whole roll of paper towels.  I took the trash out to the garage.  I double bagged.  I showered.  Twice.  I had strange dreams.

I went into work this morning and told my brother that my sunroom might be infested.

He looked at me and said, “One a night does not make an infestation.  For that, you’d need THOUSANDS.”  There’s a smirk on his lips when he says this and a gleam in his eye.  He’s a bastard.  I should have smothered him when my parents brought him home from the hospital.  It’s almost like he knows, that in my mind’s eye, I’ve just imagined the walls of my sunroom FILLED with THOUSANDS of these guys.

I called the exterminator.  He says “Well, I can’t really spray yet.  It still might get too cold out.  The stuff won’t do any good.”

I explain that they keep getting bigger every day.  I’m not sure if I can wait much longer.  I mean, with this trend, a week is going to make a hell of a lot of difference.

I think he laughed.  Perhaps it was static on the line.

“I understand you’re sensitive to this—“

“Oh, I don’t think you understand, Sir!  I’m telling you, Thursday was HUGE.  I barely survived.  I’m still having dizzy spells.  By Monday, they might not even fit in my sunroom at all.”

More static on the line.  “I’ll put you at the top of my list, JoAnn.  I promise.”

That was it.

So, it’s Friday night and the dog needs to go out.  I am left to my own devices.  I have taken out a second mortgage on my house—it’s amazing how much paper towels, trash bags, and spray cost these days.  It’s remarkable the quantity of these things one can get into a two-door Ford Focus.

If you don’t hear from me, you know what happened.  I’ll leave this as a record.