I'm inhaling the faint fumes of Raid right now. Well, not actually Raid, but some cheaper, generic version of bug killer.

Sorry Melissa. Wife was launching a chemical assault in part of the basement, and I just expanded the theater of attack.

I don't know how long it's been since I've been to the dump. Well, in some respects, I do know.

It's been exactly fifteen bags ago.

Unfortunately, the wife had half filled the back end of the Dodge with empty boxes, so I was only able to haul off 13 bags of our refuse. Thirteen bags that had been piled up next to the back porch. The last bag had to ride in the back seat with the heeler mom. Most protein matter in our waste is well sealed in cocoa and Pringles cans, so it wasn't that rank, but it was getting there. Thanks largely to the scavenging cats and squirrels that have gnawed or torn holes in almost all the bags (okay, all the bags).

As I lifted the last of the trash bags, those deepest in the corner, I spotted her.

A black widow.

I hate black widows, and quickly terminated her existance, leaving her carcass smashed on the concrete wall, legs dangling off in all directions.

Made me squeamish and itchy all over, just thinking about loading those ripped and torn bags, having hugged them to my chest to heave them into the back if the truck. Quickly loaded the three heelers (The trips to the dump, I mean, landfill, being the only time the mother heeler enjoys riding. I suspect it might have something to do with the free biscuits at the gate, or the obligatory stop at McD's on the return leg.), and off we went.

Soon forgot about the black widow threat, though, as my mind pondered this diary on the nine mile drive.

My last entry had been a quick comment on something in Rift's journal. Not a rant, not a correction, not even an argument. Just a statement of fact. Higher energy prices are a bad thing for the land I care about. Yet my entry was perceived as a rant, and I even got a lecture about how I posted it from Dawntreader.

Not what I meant, not the response I wanted. And I hope like heck Rift didn't take it the way some others apparently did. It is sometimes just too much a frickin' pain to switch to email on this system. No, it is not just a click away.

Woke up with three different entries in mind from the long Friday, but by the time I got to the dump, I had pretty much decided this journal thing wasn't worth the hassle. Time to hang it up for a while. Been too busy to write anyway.

"Course, you can see how far that got, 'cause here I am...

After treating the heelers to not one, but two double cheeseburgers, plain, we headed home. And intentionally got in the wife's way as she tried to make the bed. Hinting about hunting benchmarks this evening.

And felt one of those large, pesky mosquitoes carelessly crawl across my right ear lobe.

Swatted it quick, and came away with the crumpled arthropod in my palm.

Not a mosquito.

A fuckin' black widow!

Fuck!

Fuck! FUCK!

Threw her still wriggling carcass on the rug, and did the obligatory shake and brush dance. Only when reasonably certain I was clean of any more of the poisonous vermin did I retrieve the dying arachnid and head for the bathroom. For a quick strip search.

And hence the chemical assault on all arthropodic inhabitants of our abode.

And the Dodge, too.