Gone, Baby, Gone

First, make sure to check out Natalie’s story over at Project:Purse and Boots. Learn wow shiny sequins can enhance your fantasy life.

Second, a loving thank you to Mama P over at Keeper of the Penguins for bestowing upon me The Versatile Blogger Award. I am so happy that she chose to pass this honor on to me that I am not going to deduct any points for the fact that this week she set her vacuum on fire.

The same, however, cannot be said for me. (About the points, not the setting on fire of vacuums.)

You may recall that I have been sitting for the past two weeks on a robust +48 Martha Points for all my work on Himself’s 50th birthday party. That’s a pretty comfy buffer between me and negative numbers.

Or so I thought.

Warning: The following post is not for the faint of heart nor the meek of spirit. Consult your physician before reading. This installment of In Pursuit of Martha Points is not recommended for women who are pregnant, nursing or may become pregnant, men who are considering careers in animal husbandry or people who think it’s wrong to kick puppies. Please consult your own attorney or legal representative before reading. In Pursuit of Martha Points is not responsible for any nausea, vomiting, oogies, willies, or creepy-crawly sensations as a result of reading. In Pursuit of Martha Points is not a licensed distributor of medical advice, housekeeping advice, parenting advice, which sibling you should invite to Thanksgiving after one totals the other’s car advice, or any advice that might influence the way you think, reason, breathe or sort socks.

I’m going to tell you a story. A story of domestic turpitude so bad, so vile, that it matters not one whit that I spent the weekend cleaning, doing laundry, making pot-luck dishes, photographing a friend’s birthday party, or hemming 18 feet of taffeta on Child A’s choir dress. By hand.

No. None of those things can dig me out of this hole.

You’ll believe me in a moment.

It started with a toy. A little ball bearing magnet toy that we got for Child A when we went to Carmel. Interestingly, the boy children got t-shirts, while the girl child got a science toy. That’s how things sometimes go in our house. The ball bearing magnet toy has 216 ball bearings. Yes, 216. Now, they’re pretty powerfully magnetized and so they stick together, but two of them got lost and we were hunting around the kitchen and family room looking for them. Cause hunting for two 5mm ball bearings in 220 square feet of living space is a fun thing to do on a Saturday night.

We found one ball bearing stuck to the fridge. Child A said, “Oh, I was swinging the chain and they must have been attracted to the fridge!”

Sensible.

So, hypothesizing that where there was one there might be the second, we started hunting around the fridge. Himself, thinking – not irrationally – that one might have rolled UNDER the fridge, pulled the fridge away from the wall to look.

I was prepared for dust. I was prepared for grime. I was not prepared for what we found.

Himself knelt down and stared at the brown, rough lumps under the fridge. Perplexed he said, “What is that?”

Warning: This is where you should if, at all possible, stop reading. Unless you are OCD like me and CAN’T stop once you’ve started, in which case I suggest you have a phone with 911 on speed dial handy. And if you CAN stop now, go right ahead. Click over to something that is less likely to disturb you. Like LiveSurgeryWhileYouWatch.com.

I couldn’t quite make out what was on the floor. It looked like shredded cardboard. My first thought was, “Crap, there’s a mouse getting under the refrigerator.”

Oh no, not a mouse. I would have been happy with a mouse. THRILLED.

I got down on the floor and peered at the fuzz.

No, not fuzz…not shredded cardboard.

Bugs.

Wee little squirmy bugs.

UGH. UGH UGH BLERGHH BLECHHH UGH UGH!!!

We then did the traditional Dance of Wigging Out in Disgust.

Then we vacuumed. And sterilized. And emptied the vacuum. And sterilized again. And sprayed vinegar all over EVERYTHING (which made us all vaguely hungry for fish and chips) and wiped and scrubbed and cleaned and wiped and scrubbed.

Then we all bathed in turpentine.

I’m thinking that that’s probably a -50 point hit right there.  No explanations. No rationalizations. If you end up with bugs breeding unbeknownst to you under your refrigerator, you take your lumps.

Or in this case, you lose your points.

I now sit in humiliated (but bug-free) disgrace at -2 Martha Points.

*sigh*