Flea Spray

Alright, we used to have a mosquito problem. For whatever reason, the mosquitos in our area had decided that we, as a family, were going to become their main source of sustenance. So to prevent ourselves from being sucked into bloodless husks, we combated them with OFF! Insect Repellent. Good plan. Solid. Workable.

Then our Extreme Teen came home from a friend's house and guess what he brought with him? Fleas!! Not an invasion, but a few, and the fleas joined the mosquitos in their quest to make me insane.

Thank the gods for OFF! Insect Repellent. Only now it's since been dubbed "the flea spray".

And honestly, the fleas have more or less died off and/or moved on, and the mosquitos are doing the same (or they've discovered another family to invade and... eat). However, my youngest daughter is CON-VINCED that she is being devoured by fleas on a regular basis.

"I have fleas," she tells me, daily.

"I have fleas," she tells the checker at the grocery store.

"My mom sprays me with flea spray," she tells her teacher at school.

"Mom, do you think that the fleas are biting me right now?" she yells at me while we're in Target. In front of about ten thousand people, who all glance at me askance and then start sidling away.

"It's because I'm part dog, part cat," she explains to anyone who will listen.

She sees that commercial, the one with the dogs who wear the flea collars, and she says that we should get her one of those, since she, you know, has fleas. "Those flea collars are just what I need!" she tells me at Albertson's while we're shopping for zucchini. "And maybe you could get me some of that dog food that I like, too?" she adds, hopefully. The nice looking grandma lady at the end of aisle is now giving me dirty looks. She gets out her cell phone. I wonder if she is calling social services...? Maybe I should beat a hasty retreat and hope she didn't get my license plate numbers...

(for the record, I have never given my children dog food. I have given them cereal and told them it was dog food when they were PRETENDING to be dogs, but for whatever reason, she has it stuck in her head that it was actual dog food)

Every time she has an itch, she announces, loudly, that it's "those fleas again!"

Usually when we're out in public.

Or at school.

In the crowded bathroom at Wal*Mart where she's all by herself in one of the stalls and I'm in another stall and she wants to make sure I heard her... "Mom, did you hear me? My fleas are itching me again! Mom! MOM! THE FLEAS ARE MAKING ME ITCH LIKE CRAZY! Did you bring the flea spray? Can we get some more?"

Just now she came out and asked me if I would "spray her down".

*SIGH*

Of course I have tried to tell her that NO, she doesn't have fleas. I have refused to spray her with the OFF! Insect Repellent but then she scratches and scratches and scratches. All it takes is a little shot, on her leg, her arm, and she's good. I realize that I am fostering this behavior. However, this, like all of her other "phases", shall pass. Eventually. Hopefully before someone calls social services on me because of my flea-ridden child that I put collars on a feed dog-food.

Yup. Just another day in the life of....