We totally have fleas

We saved a baby possum from our backyard last weekend. He was such a cute little bugger, wandering along the walk. I knew (having been the lucky recipient of a headless possum) that it was dead meat if Otto caught wind it, so I boxed up the baby possum and trundled him to the local wildlife rehabilitation facility.

Today Babycakes and I popped into the facility to ask about his well being, and he had DIED! What the hell? I had saved him from being eaten, only to have him croak while being cared for by a state-of-the-art wildlife care center? And what did he die of? FLEAS. The woman who broke the news to me had cared for him herself, and she was clearly sad. I mean, damn, he was a cute little guy. She said he was "literally crawling" with fleas, and he was so anemic from flea bites that he just died.

"What can I do!?" I asked, alarmed and feeling itchy all over my body, "How can I save the possums of the neighborhood from this horrible fate?" She didn't know. She just said that he had gotten separated from his mom somehow, and hadn't been able to clean himself to rid himself of fleas. So awful.

But then, on the drive home, I began piecing a few things together... the little brown bug that leaped from Stanley's ear when I was petting him yesterday... the cats scratching at their necks... let alone the poor DOG we're dogsitting, who is sitting, as I type, in a backyard that, let's face it, is INFESTED WITH FLEAS.

How do I say "gross" with enough syllables in it to satisfy the GROSSNESS I feel about all of the fleas that have invaded our home and yard? Gro-o-o-ooooo-o-ooooooo-o-o-o-ooooooooooooooooooo-ooooooo-ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooos!

I won't even go into the "mysterious" "bug bites" I have discovered all over my legs and forearms. I'm not going to think about it. Oh great, now I'm thinking about it. FLEA BITES! How medieval!

And you know who gave us all these damn fleas? Yeah, you guessed it. THE RACCOON. At least that's my theory, I say, as I absentmindedly scratch at my skin.

Where are the fleas in our house and yard? WHERE ARE THEY NOT? Well, they're not on the cats anymore. I chased them all down and squirted them with Advantage, wishing that I could watch the fleas leap off of their skin like passengers on The Titanic... "I'll never let go, Jack!"

Yeeech.