Itchy itchy, scratchy scratchy.

Um...I can't even believe I'm going to admit this. We have an infestation. A flea infestation. I feel like I might be losing my mind. Let me just get the facts straight. Right now the little sh**heads are confined to the basement, which is a vast, unlivable wasteland. Kind of like a yawning pit of hell located beneath the place where we merrily live our day to day lives.

It wasn't always that way. Its unfinished, but huge. There is a fireplace, a cement floor. Some dampness, mustiness, just a basement. It used to be the party room. We had people over, we went to the basement. We had stereo down there, party lights, a bar...all of my husband's furniture from his apartment, plus the creepy coconut monkey from his childhood that I wouldn't allow upstairs. We let people smoke down there...we even had the plastic donkey cigarette dispenser that shoots lung darts out of its butt. It was a little link to our past single, partying life. One end housed "stuff" that we had no place for when we started our married life. The other end was "The Man Hole". Then someone gave us a pool table, and another old sofa, and another, and one more. Oh and a recliner, and a chair. Chris happily accepted all of these "gifts," gleeful about his expanding domain and heady with the possibility of parties and sports events and Playstation championships to come.

So guess what happened? We had a baby. Bye bye party room. Bye bye people coming over to hang out. Bye bye life as we knew it. Oh and bye bye kitties. You can just live in the basement, with all of the other things we've discarded!

And so....neglect ensued. I would creep down there, through the path of boxes, baby swings, infant seats...a cat teetering on top of an ancient matress above my head..duck the larger than life hairballs...shriek as I saw a bevy of spider crickets heading my way and quickly toss some laundry into the machine, grab a roast out of the deep freeze and dart back up the stairs as if the hounds of hell were pursuing me.

There have been discussions. We have to do something about the basement. Perhaps a yard sale? When? How? We have an 18 month old who would perish 23 different ways given 5 minutes down there. So we chose to ignore. We're very good at this. Until last week when during the mad dash we were both attacked...by fleas. Then my super mom freak out switch was flipped on, big time. A HOTEL ROOM! WE HAVE TO RENT ONE TONIGHT! LET'S JUST BURN THE F***ER DOWN AND CUT OUR LOSSES, WE HAVE INSURANCE! Instead, we settled on a flea bomb and an afternoon at family's, plus dinner out a Joe's Inn. The result? Instead of a frantic mob of fleas, there are one or two sluggish, drunk fleas that wanly cling to one leg and put up little resistance to being plucked off and rinsed down the drain. But I know they're down there...plotting...and regrouping.

Tomorrow's Saturday. I'm off. It will be nice, we have a pool memebership. No, none of that for us. Instead we will be filling up the RENTED DUMPSTER that arrived yesterday afternoon-with much squalling of tires and back up beepers during nap time, mind you-with all of the crap. I guess its a good thing. I'm trying to see the silver lining. Its forced us to face this formitable foe that we've avoided so long. I hope we survive to tell the tale. Wish us luck.