I have a telltale red itchy spot on my ankle. It’s the first one of the season.
I know what it is.
It’s a fucking flea bite. The first of about 1000 flea bites that I will continue to get until around October. By that time my lower legs, ankles and even a small area at the front of my stomach will be red, sore, oozing and unbearably itchy.
I am highly allergic to flea bites. I have 4 cats, and 3 of them go outside. I can’t keep them indoors, and no matter how many flea baths I give them, no matter how many flea collars I put on them, no matter how much off-brand flea treatment I massage into their fur (I can’t afford Frontline or Advantage), the fleas will stay. They will lay their disgusting eggs in my cats’ fur and my own skin. They will suck our blood like little vampires. They will burrow into my rugs and crawl in and out through the weave of my bedding. No matter how much I spray, flea-bomb, vacuum, and carpet-powder my house to kill the little fuckers, they will not go away. They never do.
By the end of the summer, I will, as always, look like I have a deadly contagious skin disease. Fleas love my blood for some reason. They never go after anyone else the way they go after me. I can’t wear shorts in the summer because my legs look like raw slabs of hamburger meat. I might scare people away. They might think I’m a leper.
Why do fleas exist? What evolutionary purpose do they have? Even maggots, disgusting as they are, at least break down dead meat into its basic elements. What do fleas do? They suck blood and make everyone miserable. They have. no. purpose. at. all.
You can’t swat them like a fly either. You can’t squish them like a cockroach. They don’t die. I have picked them up and tried to squeeze them to death by rolling them between my fingers, and THEY DON’T DIE. THEY JUMP AWAY.
It’s the only thing about summer I really hate. The damn fleas.
Maybe I should start a flea circus. At least that would put them to work.
The only thing I don’t like about the coming of spring and summer (besides the high humidity later on) is fleas. But because I have so many pets, every summer I do mighty battle with these leaping little bastards from hell.
Fleas! Argggghhh! I hate fleas more than just about anything else–and that’s a lot of things.
I have no idea why fleas ever evolved or how they ever really fit into the food chain. Or if you believe in creation, why God would have put these teeny weeny jumping demons on the Ark along with Noah. I don’t know why they exist or what their earthly purpose could possibly be.
Fleas are annoying, they suck your blood, they are everywhere, and they’re nearly impossible to get rid of. At least maggots, gross they are, help break down dead meat so they have a dirty job to do, just like that guy on TLC who made a reality show out of doing all the gross jobs no one else wanted to do. But someone’s got to do it.
What do fleas do? Fleas are the planet’s parasitic losers (except they seem to be winning).
You know what else is useless, annoying, everywhere, sucks your blood, and nearly impossible to get rid of? What else on this planet are parasitic losers who seem to be winning?
Narcs.
Maybe some Frontline can help keep the narcs under control too.
The only thing better about a narc than a flea is they don’t make your lower legs itch like hell and develop raw red sores that make you look like you have a bad skin disease. But instead of fucking with your epidermis, they fuck with your grey matter.
Hey, I got it. Let’s find a way to make all the narcs attractive to fleas–maybe there’s some sort of pheromone cologne we can splash all over them–and the rest of us and our pets can live flea-free. The narcs will be too busy scratching to bother us much anymore.
Lucky Otters Haven 