My Daughter, The Appropriately Named "Lady Not Appearing In This Blog"

My skin is crawling!!

Never have I been so happy to get my daughter out of the house. I wanted this post to be about my first few days as a stay-at-home dad: the trials and tribulations of diaper changes and peeing during nap time.

That will have to wait for another day, sadly. Did I mention that my skin is crawling? Why is my skin crawling, you may ask. Allow me to tell you the tale of two rooms.

The first room, which we will call "The Basement" is a quiet room, below the house. "The Basement" contains the laundry room, the pantry and a family space that is pseudo-finished. Two days ago, I noticed a few flies buzzing around the lights and thought nothing of it. I killed them and went about my happy existence. Yesterday, I noticed that there were...a few more. These few could be seen from the outside of the house as they decided to congregate on the window panes.

By "few" I mean "thousands."

They were not swarming, merely hanging out on the windows, the curtains, the ropes to the lights, etc.

Today, the plan was to spend the morning with my gorgeous daughter, have lunch and then my mother-in-law was going to get her and take her through tomorrow, having a nice sleepover!

As is typical, I get up before my angel and do some things around the house before she wakes and we start our day. Today, I was sitting on the couch finishing The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford when I glimpsed movement out of the corner of my eye. This movement appeared to be a flying insect in our front room. I went to investigate.

Thus begins the tale of the second room, the front room. This is a beautiful room, slightly off from the main area of the house, with a tile floor, nice windows and a sunny disposition. I went into the room to see if I could find the fly. As I rounded the corner, slowly and dramatically, I might add, I saw not one flying creature, but many. It was not a fly.

The room contained, what appeared to be, one hundred bees, flying between the windows and the walls. I called my mother-in-law and asked if she would be so kind as to take Harper a little earlier than she planned. Over the next 20 minutes, I called multiple places looking for an exterminator. As a tribute to my mother, as well as all of the other good liberals I know, I called several local places, none of which picked up their phones. My anxiety was mounting.

I eventually called Terminix and they said they would have a guy out between 11-1. I have, by this time, closed Harper's door, starting packing all of her things and by the time she got up, I had her changed and out the door in 5 minutes. In between the time I saw them and the time I got Harper out of the house, a span of maybe 15 minutes, I moved from concern to full blown panic.

I dropped her off at Sara's aunt's house and returned to mine to wait for the exterminator. Luckily, the bees were still contained in the front room, only three having ventured into the rest of the house. I'll spare you the details of the actual extermination. The guy did help me set off bug bombs in the basement, ending the reign of the flies down there. Within 10 minutes, the windows were clear.

Thus, bugs in two rooms are gone, or will be slowly over the next three days, according to the exterminator.

They are not, however, gone from my mind or under my skin. I keep thinking I'm seeing things out of the corners of my eyes.

A year or two ago, we had fleas. It took a day or two of thorough cleaning to get rid of them, but for weeks afterwards, every time a hair moved on my leg, a small itch appeared on my skin, I slapped at it, thinking I was covered in bugs. This is how I feel now.

I'm slightly afraid to take a shower because I'm worried what it will feel like.

Alright, I'm done. Here are some pictures...