SIS: Bring on the Warm Bring on The Crazy
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
This sudden warm spell has brought on the Spring Fever earlier than normal. Usually we don't see a lot of insects or sunshine until late May or even June. While this provides adults with comfort and joy, it bewilders children and animals.
As adults, we recognize that swimming and camping season is still a few months away; but try explaining that to your eight-year-old, hillbilly daughter, who believes that any time the temperature tops 70 degrees it’s a child's God-given right to go swimming. Topless. In her mind it’s 100 degrees and I’m clearly hell-bent on letting her die of heat stroke.
The heat has also been a great source of contention for my dogs, which by luck, or fate, or stupidity (it's your call) I have three. When it’s warm, all three dogs rampage for the door as soon as they think there might be a chance that someone is going in or out. When it’s cold, I have to force them outside.
The older two want to go out and eat anything rotten that might have been buried by snow, and the "puppy" would like to make it outdoors so that he can hump something other than his bed.
Yes, our "puppy" – who is really more of a young dog – is a humper. But he’s too weak and submissive to even approach another dog, so he usually just humps his bed and (or) the air. I need to mention that this humping is fairly constant; it’s like a frat boy on Viagra. It’s also a source of constant embarrassment and disgust for my daughters, which brings me to the story of the day.
A couple of weeks ago I let my daughters have a couple of friends over. This made the kid to dog ratio 5:1. Had I known that this small fact would cause the heavens to go black and upset the natural order of the household, I might have made a different choice. However, at that point, I was blissfully ignorant of the chaos that was to come.
When the friends arrived they were given a brief orientation on the dogs: this one is the humper (obviously, you see Humper has to make love to his dog bed whenever a new visitor enters the house); this one, the big one, he's psycho – don't touch him while he’s sleeping; and the little black speck of perfection you see over there, she’s incapable of doing any wrong.
So far so good.
The kids stayed in their room for hours, as it was raining and they are tweens. At about 10 p.m., they came out of the room screaming.
“We can’t sleep in there!”
“Why?” I asked.
"The room is full of giant ants!" they shrieked.
Apparently, my eldest daughter left her Easter candy on the floor, causing an ant infestation. Of course, it’s now warm enough for ants, and everyone knows that ants can smell stashed candy a mile away.
While you might not think ants are a big deal, I’ll tell you that these suckers were the big kind. Just thinking about them makes me want to scratch my flesh off.
Needless to say, I spent 45 minutes cleaning up the ants, and another 20 minutes on a trip to the Walmarche to get ant traps.
During this time, the kids were instructed to camp out in the living room. This, of course, was sensory overload for Humper, who became over-stimulated at the sight of all those pillows. In his mind, an orgy had been declared in his living room.
This led to a scene in which no one could leave a pillow unattended without said pillow becoming the victim of a senseless drive-by-humping.
With ants amply trapped and pillows temporarily secured, night became morning and the sun was shining. The kids had to go outside the instant that they woke up. This sounded great to me, as I had ants to dispose of and pillows to wash.
When the kids were all going out the back door, the dogs lost their minds and tried to escape. One child – who shall remain anonymous – tried to slam the door before Psycho made it out to conduct his campaign of terrorism. Suddenly, the entire neighborhood was awakened by a blood-curdling yelp. Apparently, Psycho wanted back in the house. Weird. What happened to him?
I shrugged it off and went about my business. A few minutes later I noticed blood. Blood on the carpet, blood all over the place. Somone was bleeding – a lot – but no one was crying. What the hell was going on?
“Who’s bleeding,” I shouted, frantic.
Then I saw Psycho, sitting in the kitchen with blood dripping from his tail. I tried to look at the tail; he tried to bite my face off. My husband had to hold him down, and that’s when I saw it: The tip of Psycho's tail had been skinned, revealing the white vertebrae.
It was during this discovery that the kids came back in, gagging because they’d found a chunk of skin on the back porch.
My husband rushed the poor dog out the door and to the vet. Humper and the Black Speck were so anxiety ridden that they ran around the house indiscriminately urinating on all of our guests’ belongings.
Which catastrophe to I address first? A house full of ants? An ocean of blood in the kitchen? Urinating, panicked dogs? Wiggy, grossed out kids? Not fair.
I was going to have to call these kids' parents and explain that we’re a bunch of hillbillies with an ant infestation, a house drenched in dog’s blood, a maniacal pillow molesting dog and their kids are going to have to go home in their pajamas because I had to wash all of their urine soaked clothes.
Oh, and also, one of their daughters had barfed that morning because she saw a bloody piece of dog skin.
If this is any indication of how the rest of the spring is going to go, I'm in real trouble.
And now you know why I drink.
Happy Spring,
Scarlette Quille
SIS, Sandpoint, sandpoint idaho lifestyle in SIS 2010 
Reader Comments (3)
The Spa...we must escape to the spa...you need it. Thanks for getting me in trouble at work for laughing so hard.
No one does supermom like you! This story is a crack-up. I know I'm a liberal city-dweller and all, but you should get the furry ones fixed. That should help his canine amour.
Three cheers for you!
"And now you know why I drink." Killed me. Well done.