Ok, so that’s actually borrowed from an e-mail Luci sent out a while ago, but IT’S TRUE!!!
Let’s just recap the events of late and, as an added fun little bonus, compare them with the ten plagues of Egypt (of biblical times).
Last year I tried to support my weight on a barnacle (don’t ask, it’s like Air Supply, go-go boots, and blue eyeshadow- I don”t know why, but they all seemed logical at the time). I slipped (of course!), sliced my leg open, and have a cool scar still. Not bad, I made a stupid mistake, but it’s a cool story to tell when the mood strikes me.
Plague 1: Blood.
I have a tattoo of a frog. I sometimes forget, but this week at the pool I was reminded when a parent of one of our swim students stopped me and pointed out my lower back to her four year old. Not sure what to make of it, but picture what you would think if a grown woman pointed out what amounts to your ass to her small child.
Plague 2: Frogs (it may sound like a stretch, but keep reading!)
I have been staying in this funky, quaint, Gulfport-esque apartment whilst awaiting moving day at my new home. Of course, part of the deal is that I clean it, because the white trash who occupied this space previously wrecked the place. One thing I’ve been battling with are these little gnats in the kitchen. I can’t seem to find the source.
Plague 3: Gnats
We go fishing last week and return home. Tom cleans out the cooler, removing bait, empty water bottles, and (I thought) chum. Chum, for those of you who do not know, is used in fishing (as in, “Sally got seasick and chummed the water”) to attract fish. Turns out he forgot to get the sack o’ decaying fish bits which I didn’t realize until I removed the cooler from my back seat. Two days later. Hence…
Plague 4: Flies
I had to take Madison to the vet because I noticed a tapeworm the length of a tape measure in her lovely puppy by-products. There’s nothing I love more than a trip to the vet (in Clearwater, he’s really good with her) where he treats her for tapeworm but also allergies (cortisone shot, wouldn’t it be cheaper to bathe her in Preparation H?)
Plague 5: Disease in livestock
I awakened last night to a pain on my right breast. I’m not sure what got me, but it hurt like hell and itches like hell now. I guess I scratched it pretty good, ’cause I have red nail marks over the bite. Which, of course, are visible in the bathing suit top I wore to work on my (new!) non-air-conditioned house today. My mother, of course, worried about the impression that sent my neighbors. Last puritan in the new world, and her mind goes right to the gutter!
Plague 6: Boils
Ok, so this one is more of stretch than the frog. Florida opened the season with a tropical storm, which passed us by ALMOST completely. This, as fellow Floridians, is cause for celebration as it means we now must suffer the next six months with commercials and weather reports that keep the therapists of all those Floridians at all prone to anxiety or panic attacks in new Beamers.
Plague 7: Hail
I go home tonight, type out the blog entry just preceding this one, and decide to wash the icky stuff off me before Tom, Sierra, and I have dinner. I walk into the bathroom of my quaint little Gulfport apartment, get my brush, and start to brush my hair. It’s basically twilight so I don’t turn on the light. I feel something on my shoulder and assume it’s a hair (I shed like a collie in summertime). I turn on the light and proceed to get ready to turn on a nice, hot shower.
That’s when I notice these little winged things flying- in formation- around my head and the bathroom in general. Yup, you guessed it- termites. Swarming. On me.
I open the shower curtain and see even more of a little “lumberjack party”. I turn on the water, thinking they will disseminate. No such luck. It’s now a pool party. And they’re still on me. Did I mention I’m naked at this point?
I forgo the shower and rush out of the apartment (dressing first), swatting at things that may or may not be on me.
Plague 8: Locusts
Plague 9: Darkness
Plague 10: Death of firstborn.
I don’t want to know. I’m going to go to bed and wait for the power to go out. If that happens, I’m ripping out my ovaries with plasticware (all I have in the house, everything else is still packed).
‘Night.
