The DAN ZONE

My dogs last night skipped over a couple of courses in the food chain from that children’s song “There was an Old Lady.” After we get home from our nightly walk (admiring all the neighbors’ horror movie Christmas lights—see post from a couple of days ago for more on that) I begin to make dinner for my doggies when I see this HUGE fricking fly buzzing around my house! Just ONE slightly warm December day in a snowdrift of frigid ones and a fricking fly manages to find its way into the house.

Little did I know how my dogs would react to this big ass fly. They went CRAZY!!! The two of them begin barking up a storm, snapping and snarling at each other in an effort to determine which of them is going to be the one to catch the damn thing. They tear off, running around my house, literally leaping up on furniture and nearly knocking over priceless Christmas heirlooms (aka: Home Goods clearance items), in an effort to snag this dang fly. It seriously reminded me of when the pack of hounds living next to Raphie in A Christmas Story broke into the house for the Christmas turkey.

Luckily, we haven’t put up our tree yet, because the dogs managed to lure the fly to the very corner next to the fireplace where we do put the tree. Usually, there’s an easy chair placed caddy corner there, in front of a bookshelf with a lamp on it. So now Sheffield is ON the chair (which they aren’t allowed to go on and don’t go on), and Miss Fine has weaseled her way BEHIND the chair and is climbing the bookshelf as the fly hides inside the lampshade. So I’m running over to save the lamp from a dog attack—thinking I should really be grabbing my Flip video camera to document this—when Sheffield leaps into the air, and comes back down on the easy chair shaking his head furiously. That’s when I see him spit out the giant fly! It lands on my easy chair, and Sheffy jumps off the chair as if finally breaking out of his hypnosis and realizing he’s somewhere he’s not supposed to be.

Meanwhile, I let out a girlish shriek because I am a mess when it comes to ANY kind of bugs. Unfortunately, Danny wasn’t home to snatch up the now wounded fly that is just sitting there in terror, although it’s not as scared as me because I’m horrified at the thought that one of my dogs is now going to gobble the dang thing down. Bad enough I ended up not letting Sheffy lick me for the rest of the night because he merely had the fly in his mouth for a split second. So I shout at the dogs to stay away from the thing and run for a plastic cup…but end up bringing out two to snag the wounded beast…which tried to make a get away UNDER the cushion of my easy chair. Once again letting out a girlish shriek, I grab the cushion and toss it across the room, spot the fly trying to snuggle deep into the warm crevasses of my chair to die. I was NOT going to let that happen. I simply can’t afford to buy a new chair right now. So, moving in slowly and fearfully, afraid I’m going to see that this fly has a human head and is squeaking, “Help me! Help me!”, I get it into the first cup, and then, with not even a hint of a moral conflict in my head, took the other cup and put it in the first one to crush that bugger betwixt the two! Unfortunately, the plastic cups were clear cups, so I let out my third girlish shriek at the visual results of my actions. I fled to the door to throw the cups out into the night, hoping beyond hope that the wind would just carry them away to a gutter somewhere so I’d never have to see them again.

If fate decides to be unkind, I’ll probably come face to face with those cups a few blocks from my house tonight when I walk my dogs….