I should’ve known better than to go outside this time of year!

But no, no – I had to be a hero, taking it upon myself to walk our hyperactive puppy around this quaint, suburban swampland of ours in the wee nighttime hours, completely oblivious to the fact that it’s during these times in the dark of night amidst a torrent of sweat and sore muscles that the bugs, they prey upon the weak and the out of shape.  Flying swift like miniature porcupines out for blood, they strike from all angles in a coordinated attack the likes of which this humble pincushion has never before seen, ultimately leaving behind a broken and very itchy shell of a man who’s now no doubt got a lot of calamine lotion to look forward to in his immediate future…

Here I thought I was safe walking around after dark, when that harmful sun of ours is off pestering the other side of the world and our temperatures here in Florida more closely resemble those of a simmering slow cooker as opposed to the blazing inferno that they tend to be during the day!  Besides, in theory exercise is always a good thing, both to try and burn off some excess energy for a wild and crazy beagle and of course, also to burn off a little excess me for, well, me, but little did I know that with every step towards a skinnier Scott and a calmer Cleo that we took, it also drove us forever deeper into the mosquitos’ nest where they would proceed to eat us alive with few regrets, except maybe that they didn’t each have multiple mouths with which they could’ve bitten us all the more!

Mind you, I don’t really know if dogs actually get mosquito bites or not, but just in case, I think it’s safe to say that I managed to get enough for the both of us … along with all of her brothers and sisters, as well as any random dogs that she’s “greeted” during her extensive puppy journeys throughout life thus far…

Something that would’ve been wonderful information to know ahead of time ­- apparently nighttime is actually feeding time for mosquitos, so that was strike one.  We walk right past a swamp, and really, Florida itself is basically just a giant swamp with strategically placed beaches and theme parks anyways, so our location of choice was strike number two.  Oh yeah, and I guess that sweat – you know, like the kind that a guy like myself tends to generate buckets of when he’s out walking for miles on end – sweat is pretty much the most potent of aphrodisiacs to these stinging, little sons of bitches, so you might say that being generally drenched in mosquito love bait ended up being strike 3, and that, as they say, was the last mistake that we would have a chance to make!

Back when I lived up in the vast forested woodlands of Northern Michigan, I used to think that the mosquitos up there were pretty bad, on account of having to be concerned about hitting them with your car and whatnot, but down south it’s a completely different story – instead of them being the size of BMWs and packing enough punch to eat through both your skin and the insurance deductible on your car in a single meal, in Florida they’re super tiny and as a result there are literally bajillions of them, hurtling their bloodthirsty brethren at unsuspecting victims like a handful of darts all lobbed haphazardly at the target in one fell swoop!

And don’t even think about those so-called “bug repellants” – as far as I can tell, all that stuff does is makes ‘em angry, and the only thing worse than a mosquito in general is one that for whatever reason happens to be angry with you…

Like walking through a wall of pain, their retribution was swift and merciless, sucking what seemed to be every last drop from my feeble veins like it was the only thing that stood between the lives of all generations of mosquitos present and future.  Swatting was futile, and at best also very messy when I might happen to catch one of my attackers just after filling up, but before actually flying away!

I laugh, partially because of the rewarding sound that they make as they go splat, but mostly because the sudden anemia makes just about anything seem funny right now…

You know what they say – You can lead a spider to water, but you can’t make it drink.

No, that’s not right.

How about – A spider in the hand is worth two hiding behind your couch.

Errr, that’s not it, either.

I know!  If you give a spider a cookie, he’s going to want a glass of milk…

If I sound delusional yet, it’s probably because lately I’ve had a particularly rough time with some unwelcome houseguests, and no, I don’t mean Weird Uncle Arnold who still insists on making his annual pilgrimage down to our sofa so that he’s in close enough proximity to fully immerse himself in the 24-hours of zany fun that are the National Kumquat Festival … although note to self: only eight precious months left until we have to entertain that whole fruity fiasco again…

In the meantime, though, I find myself with an arguably creepier problem, and as you may have discerned from my feeble attempt at poetic discourse … well, it’s those damn spiders again, I tell ya!  And mind you, here at Casa de Sevener, we’ve always had somewhat of a problem with insects of varying shapes and sizes, but I swear this year it seems like the spiders are out in full force and more and more of them are taking up residence in the nooks and crannies of my house. Aside from the obvious “bugs in the house – eek!”-related complaints, though, I also have a couple of entirely different concerns that I’d like to focus on here today.

For starters, frankly I don’t even know what I’m dealing with anymore here because it seems like no matter how many of these googly-eyed, little bastards that I kill, another one is always nearby to scamper out of the woodwork an hour later when I’m back to watching So You Think You Can Rake… and my guard is down once again.  It’s almost as if there are hundreds of the things just waiting for the green light to dash out center stage onto my living room carpet, but the really weird thing is … I’ve only ever seen one show himself at a time … which as you would assume can mean only one of two things – either these spiders are ridiculously methodic when it comes to home invasion, OR I’m not actually killing nearly as effectively as I’d like to think and in fact, it’s the same spider that keeps charging out time and time again like some sort of hormone-enraged super spider.  At this point, it could be either one…

The second thing is that throughout my vast research of these wicked invaders (i.e. watching frighteningly close-up spider videos on YouTube), one thing I’ve come to learn is that this particular species of spider is what they call a nocturnal hunter, meaning that they prey on other insects and pests while I’m sleeping obliviously in the other room … and you can probably see where I’m going with this one – what if I finally do manage to get rid of these spiders, only to then learn that they were actually keeping at bay some even more obnoxious and/or disgusting bugs that now have free reign to wander my house and rub their disgusting bug butts across my pillow when I’m not home?  How awkward would that exchange then be, to have to go back to the very same spiders that I kicked out and beg them to return so that I don’t have to check for disgusting bug butt on my pillow each night before I go to sleep?!

It’s a conundrum that honestly I just have no desire to deal with right now.  The weather has been just ridiculously hot out, thanks to old Mother Nature gracing us with an early summer, I’ve been getting really into the new Final Fantasy game that came out recently, and frankly, the last thing I feel like doing is actually having to ponder over these baffling possibilities each and every time I’m required to jump up when I hear my wife utter those five magic words, “There’s a spider – kill it!” Why can’t these six-legged, little freaks fellas just stay outside, or at least out of sight if they’re going to call my house their home?!

Seriously, I’m asking – why?! If any of you out there are psychologists who happen to specialize in human-spider relations, help a brother out here because I’m losing it!

Oh great, there goes another one…

Arrrgggghhhh!

Ever feel like you’re right smack dab in the middle of a gigantic bug orgy? And just to clarify, by gigantic I mean a great quantity of overly-amorous insects as opposed to a smaller number of school bus-sized, mutant bugs that would be capable of taking out entire buildings with each erotic thrust of fury and passion. Otherwise, cities would fall, eventually leading to entire continents lost to the violent, earth-shattering display of reproductive prowess that would come to change the face of the world as we know it today.

Boy, would that be an interesting period in history for our children’s children to learn about one day in school!

But we’re not here to speculate about Mothra’s impassioned descendants today and their imminent destruction of all mankind, mind you, for instead it seems like a fitting time to say a few words about these normal-sized, yet impressively-impetuous insects … known innocently enough only as lovebugs … who’ve taken to the skies and the breezeways and far too often even the windshield of my own car in search of that extra little adrenaline rush that makes creepy bug sex worth having in the first place. And for those of you more conservative folks out there in the crowd who might assume that I’m over-exaggerating this no-holds-barred, seasonal love fest that’s raising antennae throughout the insect kingdom, all I can say is that maybe it’s time for you to pop for a plane ticket and come down to Florida and experience the non-stop action for yourselves firsthand…

You know what they say – once you get swarmed by lovebugs, you’ll never take a step outdoors in the state of Florida during May or September again!

Really though, I guess maybe it wouldn’t be so bad except for the fact that it’s almost as if they get an extra, almost exhibitionist-like kick out of rubbing our faces in it because apparently the woods and the grass and the abundant swampland around the state of Florida aren’t spacious enough for their devious intentions, so instead they see fit to come romping into town like a mini-Mardi Gras, defiling every clean surface they can land their stinky butts on. Do I come into the swamp and have wild, freaky sex all over your front door?! Not after that run in with the poison ivy, I sure don’t…

And it’s too bad, honestly, because if it weren’t for their incessant need to flaunt their more than abundant sex lives in our faces, I’d probably be a bit more apt to admit that deep down I actually kind of admire these crazy, little kid-making kids. I mean, I hold a great deal of respect for anything with the ability to procreate and fly at the same time – talk about skill! Heck, most days I’m happy to just get a chance to do the first one – anything after that is pretty much gravy. And don’t even get me started on the duration – even if it technically is until they die shortly thereafter, that’s a hell of a way to go, wouldn’t you think?! We should all be so fortunate to go out all sweaty and exhausted after the longest sex bender the animal kingdom has ever known.

I’m not sure who would be the best diplomat for the job, but maybe we can come to some sort of compromise between those affectionate little buggers and guys like me who’d just once like to make it down to the grocery store and back without watching at least a dozen of them get plastered in pairs across my windshield … because if you think that dead bugs on their own are tough to scrape off your car! But there’s got to be something we can do to meet in the middle – maybe we can let up on the raid if they agree to restrain their emotions to walls away from breezeways and doorways that we peoples have to walk back and forth through day-in and day-out. Anything to keep us from having to scrub our clothes free of insects mid-coitus every time we enter a building!

Come on, you horny, little devils – just be the bigger species and meet us halfway on this one. Well, bigger in a sense of compassion, that is … I’m sure we’ll get to that other page in our genetically-mutated history soon enough as it is…

I woke up with one hell of a bite on my neck the other morning.

Using my awesome powers of deductive reasoning, I’m led to believe one of the two following scenarios:

a) My wife is actually a vampire, something that coincidentally never came up before we got married, but now certainly explains the absence of garlic and wooden stakes in our home.

b) Admittedly more likely, the coming of spring has also brought forth the coming of bugs and it’s now time for me to pesticide the holy hell out of our house’s perimeter before we get invaded like in years past…

Frankly, I guess I probably should’ve seen this coming – I mean, I’ve lived here long enough now to understand that spraying for bugs each spring is part of that whole maintenance package that you just do, along with preparing the alligator hooks and setting the elderly nets and everything else that we have to do here in Florida to keep our pest problems under control. And that’s all fine and dandy, except for the one notable fact that I’m extremely lazy and despite numerous warnings, will no doubt put off doing all of that stuff right up until I’ve got reptiles crawling through my living room and somebody’s grandmother asleep on my couch.

The problem is, I’m apparently not very good at the whole maintenance thing in general, as evidenced by the last time my car has been washed … and that was pretty much only done out of guilt because we had company coming into town and I didn’t want them to think that I was mistreating my supposedly shiny, new car! Which is kinda odd if you think about it because although said car certainly gleamed in the sunlight as we cruised along the beach that weekend without a care in the world, there was no underlying fear of waking up to find it attacking me in the middle of the night!

Well, there was that one dream, but that’ll teach me to watch The Car That Ate Its Owner right before bedtime…

Nevertheless, B-rated nightmares aside, if there’s one thing that you just can’t afford to skimp on when you reside here in sunny Florida, it’s without a doubt the air conditioning … and after that, of course – well, pest control is most certainly a very close second, if not even a tie. I mean, really – sitting around all hot and sweaty, but bug-free isn’t all that much better than relaxing in your climate-controlled living room that also happens to be swarming with insects … it’s kind of a joint package, if you think about it! Fortunately, however, the air conditioning more or less takes care of itself, thus leaving me to neglect the other required maintenance around our home instead. And if you think I’m good at neglecting pest control, then you should see just how thorough I am when it comes to disregarding our pets!!!

I kid, I kid – of course, I treasure our beloved fish very much and I’m fondly looking forward to the day when I have to follow behind a furry, four-legged little guy in the middle of the night to scoop up his poop, too, however in the meantime we’re getting to the point where if I don’t take action about these six- and eight-legged freaks pretty soon, we’re going to find ourselves with a whole new breed of “pets” underneath this roof and believe you me, spiders and cockroaches are a lot higher maintenance than tropical fish! Besides, by now you’ve heard about my previous interactions with the insect kingdom – if word gets out that my defenses are down and they have time to mobilize an offensive, we can kiss this little suburban homestead goodbye…

Ultimately, however, you’ve just played key witness to my problem here because in the time that it’s taken to chronicle this ordeal from suspicion of vampires to mutant automobiles, I could’ve just as easily picked up some bug spray from the store, done a couple of death-dealing applications around the house, and still had time left to make myself a delicious grilled ham and cheese sandwich to boot, but instead I’ve procrastinated as usual and now all I’ve got to show for it is a handful of thoroughly-amused readers and a family of spiders rapidly advancing on my current location with all of the lead time that they needed to assemble a formidable army of neck-biting nasties!

And don’t get me wrong – I certainly appreciate your undying love and laughs, but as they say … somewhere or other, a crowd full of laughs won’t hold back the insect invasion as they come swarming into your humble abode like a flood with lots of tiny, little fangs. That is, unless a few of you happened to be free and could stop by with some bug spray and fly swatters … call me crazy, but an army of humor column-loving fans to thwart off an army of spiders and other creepy, crawly insects hell bent on biting me in the middle of the night just might work!

That’s it – problem solved! So just buzz the gate when you get here and in the meantime, I’m just going to skip ahead to the grilled cheese portion of that aforementioned plan because as far as I can tell, this pest problem is as good as licked!

Come to think of it, if you want to bring over some gloves fit for handling gators while you’re at it…

“Please grow, baby! Please grow!!!”

No, no – we’re not pregnant – and you should be ashamed of yourselves for even suggesting such a thought to a guy that isn’t even married yet! We’ll deal with that slippery slope soon enough, but today we’re here to talk about an entirely different baby of mine that most certainly has made it loud and clear that she needs a bit of tender love and care as of late…

My fiancée.

No, just kidding. Well, of course, she needs love and tenderness, too, but as far as I know, right now we seem to be doing a-ok in that department!

But you’d let me know if you heard anything otherwise…right?

Anywho, where were we?! Oh yes – my lawn! That’s what all of this fertilizing jargon is talking about, and while I’m most certainly quite happy to have transversed the domestic line between apartment-dwellers and those who are contained within four exterior walls that are exclusively their own, but at the same time I’m also learning that there’s a lot of extra work that comes from living in an actual house! A garage to sweep, gutters to clean, a perimeter to spray for bugs that will otherwise cause one’s previously-mentioned fiancée to wake you up by screaming at three o’clock in the morning when she finds one roughly the size of Nevada crawling across the bathroom tile floor, but from my own personal experience thus far, said gargantuan spiders still pale in comparison to the plights that I’m facing with regards to our less than green front lawn right now.

And you’ll notice that I’m very quick to mention merely the front lawn, as opposed to the entire thing from front to back surrounding our little domicile here in the middle of suburbia because, well, actually one of the first things that I learned about lawn care as we got ourselves settled was that it’s not entirely uncommon for people to put completely different kinds of grass in their front and back yards. Here, I would’ve thought that “grass is grass,” but apparently that goes to show just how next to absolutely nothing I seem to know about lawn care, eh?!

So the grass seemed to be doing ok for a while – we’d managed to rid our land of several massive colonies of evil fire ants last fall and glided through the winter months thinking that there really wasn’t all that much to this here “lawn care thingy.” Every once in a while we watered it (thank god for automatic sprinklers!), every once in a while we cut it (thank god for cool guys willing to brave the hot Florida sun to mow for a nominal fee!), and we certainly had ourselves a green Christmas, but now that it’s started getting warmer, our once-beautiful lawn has started taking a turn for its crispy, brown worse.

Well, the front yard has, anyways, which believe you me was even more confusing to watch our luscious backyard flourish while the front turned to absolute crap! We started watering more and even invited a fire ant or two to move back in, just in case its success was somehow influenced by those venomous, little devils, but still – nothing. I’ve considered just buying a few rolls of that green, prickly plastic carpet that you use outdoors that kind of looks like grass, but something tells me that our landlord might not take to kindly to such an “enhancement.”

Also, it would probably be a bitch to vacuum.

So instead, as you’ve probably deducted by now from the title of this column, we’re taking a different route and are now trying our hands at fertilizing the old girl back to her mid-20s, wild and sexy, yet still responsible enough to hold down a full-time job that doesn’t involve wearing a chicken suit-like self. The stuff that I bought was some spray by Miracle-Gro, which I figured was pretty fitting because at this point it feels like it might very well require a full-fledged miracle to get our lawn looking even minutely healthy again.

Errr, front yard. Sorry about that, backyard – didn’t mean to imply that you aren’t looking as ravishingly beautiful as ever!

Hmmph – lawns! You can’t live with ‘em, you can’t play a rousing game of croquet or host a backyard barbecue without ‘em…

I’ve never really been very good with bugs in and around our home, but if you’ve been reading for this column for any length of time you’re well aware of that creepy, crawly bit of truth. Over the years, I’ve endured everything from ants to cockroaches, wasps to spiders, and there was even that one time with the giant, radioactive scorpions … nah, just kidding. I was just checking to make sure that you were paying attention, and besides, we don’t even have giant, radioactive scorpions here in Florida. Not officially, anyways…

You can tell that the big problem probably stems from my watching entirely too many horrible monster movies growing up. I’ve found that I’m not so much worried about taking care of the single insect that’s at hand at the time, but shortly after I always end up worrying that the big momma of said bug whom I just exterminated is going to show up looking to settle the family score with me, like when I’m doing dishes and find it amusing to wash the itsy, bitsy spider that’s wandered into the sink down the drain with the sprayer, only to then wonder through the remainder of the dishes whether or not a giant, fuzzy spider the size of a breadbox is going to creep forth from the drain and send me to a watery death of my own…

…or when I find a random wasp that’s wandered into our bathroom and take him out with several well-placed blows of the nearest wedding planning encyclopedia, only to think that the next time I return home after a long, hard day at work, I’ll find that my home has been transformed into a massive nest for giant, killer wasps and I’m about to be turned into wasp-food for their little swarm of babies who have turned our guest bedroom into some sort of creepy, wasp nursery…

…or even when I take a surprising amount of pleasure from kicking over one of the fire ant hills out in the back yard and watching them scramble like their entire world has just been scattered across the yard by the hand of God, even though later I’ll worry about stumbling across a sacrilegious sand kingdom in a corner of our apartment later on that evening, teaming with millions upon millions of blood-thirsty insectoids just waiting for dinner to take a step in the wrong direction…

Ok, so I actually kind of ripped off that last one from an old episode of The Outer Limits, but still, given the tenacity of the insect kingdom I don’t think it’s a scenario that’s entirely out of the question. It’s one thing to be less squeamish than your friendly, resident humor columnist, but to simply write the little buggers off altogether just because you’re bigger than them seems a bit naïve now, doesn’t it?! I mean, what would you do when you awaken in the middle of a sweat-soaked nightmare, only to find yourself wide awake in the middle of a different sweat-soaked nightmare, except that this one features a herd of wild rhinoceros beetles rooting through your stuff, eating all of your Lucky Charms, and making grossly-suggestive advances towards your now terrified live-in girlfriend? But don’t worry – there’s nothing to fear about just a few little bugs anyways, right?!

Nah, if it’s all the same this is one that I’m going to have to continue to err on the side of imaginative caution with because for every stray ant that I don’t want wandering around my kitchen, nibbling on my potato chips when I’m not looking, there are roughly another 300 trillion waiting just out of sight … waiting, watching, planning their siege on that very same kitchen. And sure, you might suggest that I could somehow avoid such an onslaught from under the hill by simply letting those little denizens dance all over my dinner, but really, you’ve got to understand that you can’t stand down when it comes to those who creep and crawl in the night. Otherwise one day it’s few nibbles out of my ever-so-delicately constructed ham and swiss sandwich, then next it could be an entire smorgasbord of sweets being sauntered out of sight while I quiver sheepishly in the other room…

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a tough act to balance – defend one’s lunch, while at the same time not attracting so much attention as to welcome on an all-out invasion from the insect world onto my own. On one hand, those new cupcakes that I picked up are absolutely delicious, but on the other hand, have you ever tried to sleep with the threat of giant, radioactive scorpions lurking just outside your door???

Those are the kinds of things that keep me up at night…

I don’t want to alarm anyone, so just try to stay calm when I tell you this…but I think we’re being watched.

You think it sounds creepy now, but wait until I actually get around to explaining what in the heck it is that I’m whispering about and I assure you that in actuality, it’s really much, much worse. In fact, I probably only have a few minutes before they’re on to what I’m trying to do here, so we must make haste…

You see, the other day I learned that we’re not alone in this apartment, and believe you me, I wish I was talking about ghosts! Although the supernatural may come and go as they please, walking through walls and floors, and probably peeking at you while you’re on the can through an otherwise closed bathroom door, you don’t necessarily have to worry about them actually touching any of your stuff – that’s the beauty of ghost-hood, really. Ask anyone who’s ever had ghosts romping around their home if they’ve ever uttered the phrase, “Don’t use that glass – we found a ghost in the cupboard earlier this afternoon!” Unless they’re playing host to Slimer, I promise you that your answer is going to be a resounding “No.”

Ladies and gentlemen, it’s not the same with cockroaches.

Yes, that’s right – I said cockroaches, bolded and everything to imply further emphasis on the seriousness of the matter. The other day while I was unloading groceries, I came across this humble, old chap just hanging out right smack dab in the middle of my countertop. Now having written my college thesis on the not-so-common giant cockroach (the paper was titled Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Giant Cockroaches, But Were Kicked Out of the House for Being a Disgusting Idiot Before Having the Chance to Ask… – I got an A-), I can tell you that cockroaches prefer dark and dreary places (examples: garages, underneath refrigerators, the 1957 World’s Faire) as opposed to bright, lit up places, so I was more than a little miffed as to why this dude was just chilling out in the open. Ultimately, I figured that he was either: a) really stupid; or b) a clever decoy to distract me while the rest of his buddies took over the world or something.

Mind you, all of this clever deduction took place over the course of about three seconds before I started screaming like a woman who’s just seen her first spider…

After finally calming myself down from a mass hysteria comparable to that of the second Spice Girls album, I was able to determine that it was going to be necessary for me to capture and interrogate my new guest in hopes of learning the whereabouts of his tribe and what exactly they wanted from my measly, overpriced apartment. Of course, this second part didn’t really happen after I caught the little bugger (no pun intended) under a glass and realized just how God-awful big the thing was – I mean, seriously, I’m not sure how he got in here in the first place unless he brought a set of lock picks or something with him. He (or she, to be fair) was easily the biggest cockroach that I’ve ever seen, this side of that utterly disgusting special on the Discovery channel that provided to me, if anything, that there are some things better not left to HD! I was going to need a baseball bat, or possibly even a Buick to show this bug who the real boss was…and to save you all of those gory details, let’s just say that by the end of the night, I wasn’t the one wrapped up in a paper towel at the bottom of the garbage bag!

So yeah, it felt good to have my home clear of such a beast, but a little voice in the back of my head makes me wonder if I didn’t, in fact, end up doing more harm than good by manhandling their cohort in my fit of rage. I spent the rest of the night awake in bed in a cold sweat, wondering what the rest of the clan would do once they put two-and-two together and realized that Jerry hadn’t checked in yet. Maybe they didn’t really like Jerry anyways because he always cheated at Monday Night Poker and had been known to ogle the other roaches’ wives rather suggestively. Or maybe Jerry was actually the brother of the head cockroach (or President, or Team Leader, or whatever the heck they call him – my paper really didn’t get into that part…) and now I was about to become the tribe’s sworn enemy, unleashing world upon world of cockroach hate and violence against myself, and all because I had to squash first and ask questions later. As you can see, it didn’t take me too long to realize just how screwed I really am…

I pictured myself getting up in the middle of the night for a drink of water, reaching into the refrigerator and having my glass handed out to me by a form to blurry to identify without having my contacts in. Or perhaps I’d simply open the bedroom door to find an army of brown and black blanketing the tile floor of the hall leading to the rest of the apartment, much akin to the army of orcs, trolls and other assorted nastiest assembled by Sauron in the battle for Minas Tirith in Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, if you want to put a geeky spin on it. Undoubtedly, one of the roaches would end up firing before the command was given, thus leading the siege on my bedroom with the fell swoop of the hand of black. Believe me, in teetering between these scenarios, along with a third that depicted the bugs rushing my bedroom secret agent style with a fog machine and some piano wire, I really didn’t get much sleep last night.

And honestly, I really don’t know where to go from here. Sure, maybe my single violent attack was just enough to force them to draw back their forces and re-strategize against a new and lesser opponent, but somehow I don’t really believe that. There was just something in that roach’s eyes that said, “We’re not backing down without a battle of epic proportions. You can kill me, but you’ll only be welcoming a world of pain that you couldn’t possibly imagine upon yourself. Viva France!” With any luck, maybe a plea bargain of sorts would be a worthwhile offering to them – I don’t really need two bedrooms here anyways…we can share, right? Or maybe I could pay some sort of additional protection fee to someone or something that could put them cockroaches in their place, so to speak – yeah, that’s the ticket!

On second thought, the Holiday Inn down the street might actually be our safest bet after all…that is, assuming they’re welcoming refugees like us. Oh, I’m sure they’d be happy to open their doors and…

Wait a minute…did you hear that? What’s that sound???

War drums?!

There’s no turning back now. It seems that the war for apartment thirteen-oh-eight has now begun. If I don’t make it out of this alive, tell my mother that I died bludgeoning a giant cockroach with a dining room chair. She’d be proud of that…

Also, if you could maybe write a little tune about my epic tales that people might hum or whistle from time to time when the going gets tough and they, too, find themselves stuck between a rock and a giant cockroach, that would be nice. I think Gordon Lightfoot would be a good choice to sing it for the album…but then again, maybe I’ve got other things that I should be worrying about right now…

There are few things in this world that I enjoy doing as much as sleeping, or at least few that are as easily obtainable! It’s relaxing, rejuvenating, refreshing, and several other words that begin with R, but most importantly – I’m good at it and I can do it just about anywhere…or at least I used to be able to… It seems that lately, with the coming of summer and all that it entails, along has also come a family of crickets into my life – a very vocal family of crickets who chooses to have their raving family discussions promptly at 4:00 AM every evening, just as I’m well on my descent into la-la land…

Now right off the bat, I can tell what those of you living in the bigger cities across the nation are thinking – “Hey, it beats traffic and gunshots and roving gangs!” Although you may say that now, you can’t tell me that it would somehow be easier to fall asleep to the gentle and soothing sounds of Mother Nature than those of hardcore, metropolitan violence and mayhem! Sure, those thugs and hoodlums can be mighty intimidating, with their boom boxes and souped-up rice-burners and lingering sense of death and destruction, but man, these crickets are freakin’ huge, I tell ya!

Easily the size of Volkswagens, these beasts have made a regular thing out of gathering along the outside wall closest to my bedroom, resonating their incessant song throughout my home, my resting quarters, and ultimately, my skull! Chirping loudly enough that I’ve half expected on many occasions to awaken and find the giants circled around my pillow like wolves hovering over their next victim, yet these noisy devils still manage to possess that bizarre skill of being able to go stealth the second I jump from my bed, flashlight and newspaper in hand, ready to kill the first thing I see that moves. The second I spring from my non-existent slumber, overcome with an uneasy combination of bloodlust and insomnia, the entire room goes silent and it seems like all my troubles have disappeared. Of course, we all have a pretty good idea of what happens when I attempt to retire once again…

So here’s the situation now – I can’t remember the last time I’ve gotten a decent night’s sleep and everyone knows that I can just be such a blast to be around when I’ve been lacking in this department, so it goes without saying that something needs to be done to alleviate this ordeal, pronto! I’ve already checked at the store and they simply don’t make a can of bug spray big enough for what I’d like to do, nor can I afford the electricity bill that comes along with a gargantuan-size bug zapper. Moving is pretty much out of the question because I think they’re smarter than that and would just follow me, and the best idea that I’ve heard yet – that I should sneak up on them while they’re sleeping during the day and sing show tunes for a dose of their own medicine – probably won’t work, either, because well, all of my friends and neighbors already know that I might just be too good of a singer for anyone or anything to consider it a punishment!

What I’m looking for is a solution and seeing as my readers tend to stand among the upper echelon of civilization as we know it, it seemed only logical that I turn to you guys for advice, and believe me, guys – I really need to get some sleep soon! Whether your idea involves encasing my bedroom in a soundproof bubble or even planting enough premium cricket chow around my neighbors’ houses to distract the beasts from my own attempted slumber, I want to hear about it! Although I can’t technically pay you for your assistance, you will be able to sleep good at night knowing that, well, I’m sleeping good at night, and that’s gotta count for something, right?! To throw your hat into the ring, send your ideas to:

scott@comedic-genius.com

I look forward to hearing from many of you soon…it’s not like I’ve got anything else to be doing in the meantime…