Invasion

Yesterday was one of those days! You know, the ones that start out great, and then WHAM! All of sudden something totally CRAZY happens and your whole day goes to complete ____! That was my yesterday! Like I said, the day started out well. Baylor and I ran some errands, and he was especially well behaved. That alone should have clued me in that DOOM was lingering just around the corner.

Anyway, our good day continued when we picked up big brother Jax. He was feeling unusually chatty. Again, another warning sign staring me in the face. Rather than the usual, "I don't know." and "I don't remember." responses to my questions about his day, Jax shared stories of playing with friends and reported on the classroom activities. Wow! Good to know that he is in fact doing something when we drop him off. I was starting to wonder.

We made it home without issue and given that the weather was nice for a change, I thought it would be fun to play with the 12 million riding toys that have sat neglected in the garage for almost 2 months. So, we made our way up & down the street with each and every vehicle. Wouldn't want one to feel more loved than the other, right? All in all, it was a lovely, relatively uneventful, perfectly ordinary day. WHAM!

As soon as we entered the house & rounded the corner into the dining room, mayhem broke loose. There were tiny bugs scurrying EVERYWHERE! I'm sooooooo not exaggerating! Hundreds of bugs (easily!) crawling all over the dining room floor. WHAT THE HELL?!? It was beyond horrible. Thankfully, because of my spring cleaning craze that struck this week, the Dust Buster was laying nearby. I grabbed it & began trying to suck up as many of the little critters as I could. Jax did what I wanted to do, ran and jumped on a chair. He hates bugs even more than I do, a phobia I no doubt instilled in him by me. Baylor has not yet inherited this irrational fear. So what does boy genius do? Walks right into the middle of the chaos, of course! All I could think was, "Great! I hope they don't bite." Turns out they didn't.

Well, my little bug-sucking Dust Buster was doing a phenomenal job until it started to die. Why oh why didn't I plug that sucker in to charge?!? I instructed Jax to go fetch the big vacuum from the laundry room, and he looked at me like, "Mom, I'm not getting off this chair!" Sadly I think he feared me more than the bugs at that moment in time. So he did as I instructed while I continued to fight the never-ending battle against the bugs. All I could think was "Where are these things coming from?!" I was sucking them up, but the invasion continued. Had these critters sent a message for reinforcements or what?!

When Jax returned with the vacuum, I handed him the Dust Buster and said, "Get as many as you can, buddy!" His fear had passed by that point, and he was having a grand ol' time now that he was "armed." Baylor, of course, was now completely unhappy. Everyone except him had a vacuum. Oh well, I didn't have time to deal with his tantrum. The bugs were continuing their assault. I figured out that they were coming from the window. Nevermind that the windows were closed & locked. I instructed Jax to put down his Dust Buster and fetch me the can of bug spray from under the sink. I keep it there for emergencies. I say this event qualified.

After making quick work of the child cabinet lock (glad I wasted my money on those!) Jax proceeded to hold up each and every bottle of cleanser until finally he found the "all black can" I had been screaming for. Poor kid! I must admit he puts on a brave face when his mommy is having a complete bug-induced meltdown. My friends, let me tell you...Raid is death in a can!!! I sprayed the entire window casing & that was all she wrote. The bugs had no time to wave the white flag. They were DEAD, DEAD, DEAD, and I went from a level 12 stress level to a level 6 in about .001 seconds. With the invasion halted, Jax and I made quick work of the remaining bugs. Then, the boys hurried off to watch a movie while I scrubbed the dining room from floor to ceiling.

So, by now you've all got to be wondering the same thing I was, "What the heck?" I called the professionals out today, and my worst fears were confirmed. We have termites, a lovely colony right outside the dining room windows. Turns out that in the spring, termites swarm to establish new colonies, and this is when most people discover they have a problem. As if I didn't despise my landlord enough already. I can now add this to the list. Of course, why didn't it occur to me that if he isn't paying the mortgage or homeowners' association dues, then he probably isn't paying on the termite bond that came with the house. I've owned homes. This should have occurred to me, but it didn't. I will accept partial blame.

However, I won't be paying the extermination bill which is estimated at $1900. Nope, I'll be deducting that from the next rent check. Whether the landlord likes it or not, our lease defines this as his responsibility. He'd better count his lucky stars that I'm not suing for emotional distress. I tell ya' that was an experience I won't soon forget. I have to admit, I'm wondering if I'm a magnet for crazy? Other people don't share stories like this with me. Do things like this happen to other people? I swear our life is never dull. Never.