Menopausal Mother

     It's the words no homeowner ever wants to hear: "Your home has termites." Just like the five stages of grief, after hearing this news, there is denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. How do I know this? Because I just survived The Great Termite Invasion Of 2017. (Photo on right from Jared Belson)

     My journey into termite hell began shortly after my contractor started demo work on my bathroom remodel. I've known this man for many years, well enough that when he called my name by extending the "a", as in, "Marciaaaaaaaa...."  I knew that I had a problem. A BIG one.

     He pointed to an exposed wood beam that resembled a chunk of Swiss cheese. "And that, my Dear," he said, pointing to the holes, "is termite damage."

     NO. Just NO. Total denial. So what if I lived in a wood frame home? I hadn''t seen any termite droppings in fifteen years. No one in the neighborhood had had them recently, either.  I set an appointment with the pest control people just to confirm that it WASN'T termites.

     It was termites.

     Summer is swarming season, and my home had become a banquet of wood delicacies for those nasty bugs. I was beyond anger. I was ready to burn down the house because everyone knows that termites in a house are akin to head lice on your kid.

     TORCH IT.

     The bargaining began with the pest control company. "Are you SURE it's termites? What if the damaged wood is just remnants from the last invasion? Can we skip the whole tenting process and just drill some toxic chemicals into the ground to kill them?"

     When I realized there was no way to avoid the miserable tenting process, I went into a depressive state. I'd ridden that rodeo before, and I knew what loomed ahead: removing all food from the refrigerator, emptying out the pantry, finding pet lodging for three dogs and weekend lodging for ourselves, shelling out tons of money to pump poison into my house, and spending a small fortune to replace all the shrubs and flowers the would be destroyed by the toxic gases.

     Acceptance finally sank in the night I found thirty-some termites swarming around my windowsills. IN MY BEDROOM, FOR GOD'S SAKE. And there were more----a handful of dead ones near my laptop and dozens of discarded, iridescent Tinker Bell-type wings scattered across the front porch floor. It looked like a drunken fairy convention gone wrong.


     BURN DOWN THE HOUSE.

     My husband and I frantically packed up our belongings, emptied half the contents of our house, grabbed the dogs, and moved out for three days. There was arguing. There was yelling. And there were tears.

     Yes, tears. We argued with the pest control people. We yelled at each other over the enormity of crap that had to be moved. And I cried when I learned that I might lose a few of my beloved trees in the gaseous tenting process.


     I was also extremely annoyed by the fact that I had to cancel my seven-day vacation to Tallahassee in order to afford the termite eradication. So I did the next best thing. I moved into my daughter's luxurious condo and spent my entire time lazing by her pool, sipping margaritas in the sun.

     After the three-day termite vacation, my husband and I returned home. The flowers in our garden looked like they'd been singed with a flat iron, and the inside of our house felt like a landing strip on Mercury. It was ninety-two degrees inside, and while sweat pooled in our sneakers, we unpacked our suitcases, restocked the kitchen, disinfected the countertops, swept up the dead termites, and mopped all the floors.

     Home, sweet home.

     The tricky thing is that the termites are still swarming, somewhere, in search of another home to invade. It could be in the house next door. Or in the attic at the middle school down the street. They might even feast on the wooden dog house behind the fence in my neighbor's yard. Or they may decide the wood at my house truly is a delicacy and return to munch on more beams.

     At least for now, we are termite-free. And somewhere near a sunny pool, there is a celebratory margarita with my name on it, and a t-shirt that reads, I SURVIVED THE GREAT TERMITE INVASION OF 2017!



***WANT MORE MENO MAMA? I am THRILLED to have my first article on The Fix! This is a serious one, folks. It's all about the hidden dangers of Nootropic addiction/substance abuse. You can read it here: https://www.thefix.com/hidden-dangers-nootropics

    Welcome to the April edition of Fly On the Wall groups postings, hosted by  Baking In A Tornado.  Today, 15 bloggers are inviting you to catch a glimpse of what you'd see if you were a fly on the wall in their homes.
 
    As for my house, there has been a lot of yawning going on. Lately, I'm always tired. The Hubs is tired too, and now the teen is tired. Heck, I'm beginning to feel envious of my dogs because they get to nap all day long. I'm trying to combat my drowsiness with more coffee, but even after several cups of java strong enough to wake the dead, I'm STILL yawning at the gym and dreaming of when I can curl up on my Tempur-Pedic.

     Here's a glimpse of some odd, conversational tidbits going on around me while I was trying to sneak in a few cat naps over the weekends:


"I wish our female dog was spayed. When she gets her period, she leaves her doggy DNA all over the new carpet."

"Why don't stores sell elephant print leggings for working out?"
"Because no sane woman would wear elephants plastered all over her butt and thighs while doing squats at the gym."

"Don't bother me while I'm writing."
"Are you working on the new book?"
"Nope. This little piece is known as Book Proposal Purgatory."

"When you have A.D.D., your brain is like a computer with 20 tabs open all at once."

"You know we can't afford another car, Hon. You can still squeeze a few more years out of that 1999 Honda Odyssey minivan."
"That's easy for you to say! I'm the only man in Broward County driving the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car from hell."

"When it comes to quality time in the bathroom, our son defies the success of any odor-eliminating spray."

"Nana, do you want a lobster roll or lobster ravioli for dinner?"
"No thank you. I don't like my lobster adulterated."

"I'm convinced that stemless wine glasses were invented for sloppy drunks."

"On Pinterest, it says that pinning a dryer sheet to your shirt will ward off mosquitoes when you're outside.  I have a better idea---just pin a poopy diaper to your hat. I'm pretty sure that would keep the mosquitoes away."
"Yeah, but then you'd be inviting the flies to a feast."

"I'm so full from dinner, I feel like someone put a sandbag in my stomach."

"It doesn't matter if you're in your 80's---you can still join a Cross Fit Class. But it will have a different name----like "Wheel Chair Aerobics" or "Walker Workout."

"If you eat that blueberry, raisin, and apple bran muffin before going to Zumba, you're going to end up with fruit flavored flatulence at the gym."

"After all the margaritas I've consumed tonight, I think the last mosquito that just bit me is going to be hungover for a week."

   
 Welcome to another edition of the Fly On The Wall Series, hosted by Karen at http://www.bakinginatornado.com. That pesky fly has been busy buzzing around the 12 bloggers participating in today's group challenge. He even followed me on a recent family vacation and left with an earful. My guess is that after spending a week with us on the road, he dove into the nearest martini to drown the memory of what he witnessed during our trip:

"I've had so much coffee on this road trip, I could hang a Starbuck's sign on my bladder."

"Stop feeding the pug banana bread! It may smell good going in but it smells really bad coming out."

"Don't make me laugh so hard in the car---I have to pee!"
"Next time remind me to get plastic seat covers..."

"Too bad it rained, because I was really looking forward to zip lining over an alligator pit."

"Why are we the only people in the hotel gym with Solo cups full of champagne?"
"Because the lounge was closed. This way we can drink and burn off the calories at the same time. Oh
look! There's champagne cup holders on every treadmill!"


"Did you just fart in the pool?"
"Um...no...why?"
"Because your swim trunks are billowing out like a flotation device."

"Oh great...take the guy with no cartilage in his knees on a rocky, ten mile hike through the woods...yeah, that's my idea of a fun, family
bonding moment."

"What on earth took you so long at the gas station?"
"We were comparing penises in the restroom."

"We've had so much to drink since we've been on vacation, my liver is crying out for an AA meeting."

"Stop dropping gas bombs in the car. You smell like processed ass."
"You're the one who bought me the fried chicken tenders, Dad. They upset my stomach."
"Chicken tenders? More like chicken stinkers out the butt."

"Nothing like driving a car with a transmission that bucks you out of your seat."

"We took a wrong turn on that last trail. I think we're lost. We could be in China for all I know."
"I think we've just entered another dimension, known as the Twilight Zone."
"Or we're starring in a new movie---Paranormal: The Woods Edition"
"I told you we should have left a trail of breadcrumbs..."

"Hon, you've eaten so much on this trip, I think we need to stop at Walmart and get you some men's maternity pants."

"Stop making booger patches on your side of the car!"

"Why aren't you going inside the caves with us?"
"Because I'm probably older than most of those stalagmites. And I'm claustrophobic. I might have a heart attack. Paramedics don't respond to cave calls."
"I don't understand what caused you to be so claustrophobic."
"I got trapped inside a mole hole as a child."

"Stop using the gingerbread cookie air freshener in the bathroom to mask your poops. Next year when I smell Christmas cookies baking in the oven, I'll think of poop."

"I know its been raining a lot, but it'll pass."
"Yeah, about as quickly as a gallstone."

"It's about time you got into a pool after 15 years. This is a HUGE event...sort of like man's first visit to the moon.... one small step for Marcia,
one giant leap into the pool."

"Why did you guys sprint ahead at the park and leave me behind in an open field with lightning, rain, 50 mile per hour winds and a funnel cloud above? You knew I couldn't run the mile back to the car with my bad knees."
"It's not our fault you're the injured buffalo in the herd."
"That means you'd leave me behind to be eaten by the wolves?"
"We didn't want to get hit by lightning or sucked up in a tornado. You were moving too slow for us!"
"I was busy clicking my heels, trying to get back to Kansas."



     And this, folks, is how we vacation Doyle style. I'm off now to swat a fly and fill my Solo cup with champagne. Be sure to visit the other bloggers in today's challenge!