Library Notes
October 1, 2004
By Pansy Hundley, Librarian.
It wasn’t bad enough that the mosquitoes and chiggers were trying to eat me alive. Then the fleas joined in the attack.
I got out of my car the other day after I pulled into my car port, stepped upon my little "porch" and realized that I was being eaten, beginning with my legs. I had fleas all over my legs, all of a sudden, out of nowhere.
Quickly, I started to try and brush them off, so as not to carry them into the house.
I got two kinds of insect sprays from the house that listed fleas as one of the varmints to be annihilated with each spray. I sprayed around all over the place where the fleas had attacked me. Guess I fixed them!
Came out the next morning to get in my car. What do you think was jumping all over my legs and biting again? Yep! You guessed it.
Can you imagine how small a fleas’ mouth has to be? And he’s bitin’ me. And, no, I do not want an hour and a half lecture on fleas not having a mouth and what they bite with and all that. I know they are fleas and they are biting, pinching, stinging or whatever they do. Doesn’t matter. I have pain in my leg where that flea is settin’ and that’s the important thing in this story.
I hastened that night to go find the powdery, very fine "stuff" I had gotten for fleas on my dog. I filled up my "sprinkler bottle" with that fine powder and I sprinkled it all over the car port. Guess I fixed them!
Waltzed out that door next morning, rushing to work, and those little brown, jumping things ‘bout carried me to the car.
So, later that day I called the feed store and asked if they had anything down there that would keep the fleas from eating me alive. After he stopped laughing, the man who answered the phone said everyone was having the same problem and he couldn’t keep stuff on the shelve. He recommended Malathion, but said if it didn’t work, not to tell anyone where I got it or who said it would work.
I took that bottle home, diluted some of it with the recommended amount of water, got my sprayer out, declared continued warfare, and started spraying
That was the fourth time I had sprayed , with a different thing each time. If I could have seen them all, they were probably lined up, guzzling all that good ‘ole stuff and having a party. I was dessert! Remember all the strawberry sundaes.
Well, I’m here to tell you, the party’s over! About one day after the fourth spraying, with that feed-store-recommended Malathion and it was safe to walk out my door. It was so nice to not have to swat and rub and scratch and brush varmints off.
So that the man at the feed store won’t have to worry, I’ll heartily recommend his Malathion to annihilate those pesky, chewing, brown lil’ ‘ole things that can make life miserable.
With fleas, hopefully, fully under control, let us leave that subject now and concentrate on a new book, shall we? Let us look at Johanna Lindsey’s new one, hopefully with no fleas mentioned in it, entitled "A Loving Scroundel".
"When Danny, a young woman who grew up on the streets of London with no memory of her real family, is banished from her gang because she helped handsome rakehell Jeremy Malory steal back the jewels his friend lost in a card game, Danny demands that Jeremy give her a job. She is determined to become respectable in order to fulfill her dream of marrying and starting a family. Intrigued by her beauty and spunk, Jeremy hires Danny as his upstairs maid, although he wants her as his mistress.
Under the tutelage of Jeremy and his cousin Regina, Danny blossoms into a lady. Although she is drawn to Jeremy by passionate feelings she has never experienced before, she refuses to be anything more than a servant to him because she knows he is not the marrying kind. When Danny undergoes a Cinderella-like transformation and poses as Jeremy’s new love in an attempt to help him avert a scandal, a few highly placed members of the ton remark on how familiar Danny looks. Now tongues are wagging, raising the question of her true identity, which threatens not only Danny’s chances of capturing Jeremy’s heart but her very own life."