Thursday, September 16, 2010

It's a Racket!

I thought we could get by till cold weather without buying another round of flea medicine for the dogs, but that didn't happen.
They all started scratching and moaning several days ago so when I went to the co-op this morning for feed and seed, I picked up enough medicine to treat all five dogs.
My first car cost less that what it costs to treat these dogs for fleas. As my father-in-law Sharky used to say, "It's just a racket!" I could not agree more.
When I returned home, I got out the flea comb, which is a metal device with teeth that are really close. When I combed the dogs, I trapped a lot of the little varmints, which I immediately dropped in a jar of gasoline. Good riddance you little blood suckers.
The only thing I hate worse than fleas, are cockroaches. When Jilda and I married, our first home was a 12x65 foot trailer. We should have been suspicious when we smelled Raid the day met the owners there to sign papers. We were so happy to have a place of our own, it probably would not have mattered, but it would have been good information to know.
We struggled with roaches for several years. We'd have exterminators spray, and you could see the scuzzy little creatures baling out and going to the trailer next door. When the neighbors sprayed, the bugs came back.
Things changed when my job sent me to Mobile to work after Hurricane Fredrick demolished most of the infrastructure in the port city.
We simply turned every thing off, locked up the trailer, and moved into a Howard Johnson's Motel on Government Street in Mobile for almost a year.
What was unfortunate for the roaches, is that it was one of the hottest summers on record in Alabama.
It got so hot in August, you could have cooked biscuits on our front doorsteps. That trailer was like a convection oven inside.
When we returned the fall of 1980, there was not a roach to be found. Even when you went to the kitchen for water in the middle of the night, there was nary a roach to be found.
Too bad we couldn't figure out a way to bake these fleas without having hotdogs (I couldn't resist).
Y'all have a great Friday and weekend.

4 comments:

  1. It was recently announced that there is advanced research showing that a substance in the head of roaches will kill MIRSA. So if you again get roaches, at least you can trap them and turn them in to the parma companies!

    I hate bugs; all kinds. There's nothing I like about them and I don't care if that's politically correct.

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  2. I have to admire a guy who can work fleas and roaches into a post. Enjoy your weekend!

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  3. Tics too. I hate tics! Ick!!

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  4. I feel your pain about fleas. We moved into a new house this winter that, as we later found out, had belonged to a groomer. As soon as summer hit there was an explosion of dormant fleas. We've been battling them all summer and spending a small fortune to make sure all 7 pets are covered.

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