Rufus has the worst fleas. We bathe him. We dose him with Frontline every month and still, he is flea-riddled. And they’re nervy. Last month they went on strike for better working conditions. Seems I had created an unsafe workspace for them with all the flooding and the poisoning and their boss expected them to pay for their own safety equipment.
Well, why should I give a shit if my dog’s fleas go on strike? Sounds like Heaven. They refuse to do flea-things to my dog and I don’t have to think about how much money I’m spending on failing to eradicate them. Strike away, fleas.
My enthusiasm was ill-thought-out. Because, of course, they don’t need all 8,452 fleas on the picket-line at any given moment. Twenty of them would take their signs and follow behind the dog chanting their slogans and the rest of them would crowd onto the couch to watch TV. You think, well, how hard can it be to take a remote from a bunch of fleas? But then, you reach over for it and they swarm all over your hand, down in between your fingers and up your arm. It’s just so gross.
Lesley was all, “Just get some diatomaceous earth and sprinkle it on the couch. That’ll fix them.”
Oh, sure, for regular fleas. One day I sprinkle diatomaceous earth on the couch, the next day UPS shows up with 8,452 very tiny boxes. Inside each one? Protective suits. Worse? They bought those suits on Amazon using my account. Each order had its own shipping fee, so they drained my bank account. Why does Amazon even sell protective suits to fleas? I tried to get answers, but all Amazon would tell me is that they don’t pass judgments on their customers. Eventually, I got the bank to handle it—since the fleas stole my identity and bank information in order to place the order. But I know for a fact that not one of those fuckers got anything more than a slap on the wrist.
So, it ends up being me who has to go back to their boss and try to negotiate some kind of settlement, because I just can’t have all these fleas loitering on my couch. You can’t even imagine the difficulty of this. I had to sneak up on Rufus when he was asleep and then dig around in his fur to try to find the flea management that was still on the job and then talk to them softly enough that Rufus wouldn’t wake up. Otherwise, he’d put his head on my lap and insist on scratches or think we were about to go out and start hopping around. And to hear a flea, you basically have to let it crawl in your ear and then shout to you the things it wants you to know. Your ear never feels clean afterward.
But we make the negotiations happen. And I agree to issue general warnings before we bathe the dog. In return, they agree to cease trying to unionize the cats’ fleas. Soon enough, I can sit on my own couch and watch my own TV. But my dog still has fleas. What can you do?
Tiny Cat Pants 