Bite Me

Man, I have just been in a deep funk lately. Like, diving bell deep. I feel like one of Bill Cosby’s dates after her second cocktail. My body refuses to move, even if it means I’m gonna get fucked if I don’t.

I don’t know why, either. Nothing calamitous has descended on DangerHouse (for once). My marriage is as pornographically raucous as ever. Even my despair over our nation’s seemingly inexorable march towards authoritarianism is being successfully moderated by judicious applications of alcohol. There is absolutely no good reason for it, but rigor mortis has set in nonetheless.

Needless to say, I have also not kept up with the Readings o’ the Blogs of Others during this stretch of ennui. I feel pretty bad about that, as some of my (virtual) nearest and dearest are going through some very difficult times. I haven’t been around to offer them even the faintest words of support or succor for weeks.  And I’m just vain enough to think, to know, that even the faintest word of support from Dangerspouse in one’s comment box does indeed bring succor.

Oh well. To make up for it, here’s a picture of my ankle:

Damn, I’m white.

Oh, those red marks? You’re probably thinking they’re hickeys given to me by the hordes of teeny, tiny groupies of my radio show, right?

Normally you WOULD be right. But this time, you’re wrong.

They’re bites.

Flea bites.

Yes, this time tomorrow I should be breaking out in quince sized buboes and listening for the bring out yer dead guy.

But how did I manage to acquire such a medieval scourge? I mean, it’s been at least a decade since I flushed my Yersinia pestis experiment down the sink. And at least two years since I cooked the last member of my Rattus rattus colony (at NewWifey(tm)’s insistence, dammit).

So how did I get flea bites?

Here, go back and read my previous entry.

Never mind. I’ll just tell you (although that entry was pretty damn funny and you should read it one of these days anyway): my wife has made it her mission in life to transform the scabrous hellion of a feral cat that wandered into our yard last month into the cover model for next month’s issue of “KuddleKittens Kwarterly“.

Somewhat alarmingly, she’s actually had a modicum of success. In my last entry I showed pictures of the beast feasting first on our porch, then in our kitchen after NewWifey(tm) gradually moved the feed bowl further and further inland. The post ended with her elation that he (we finally determined sex after spotting fuzzy dice) allowed her to scratch his back while he guzzled down a bowl of ($4.99/pint) heavy cream.

Now things have advanced to where the little mooch is sitting outside our door first thing every morning, waiting for NewWifey(tm) to rise and serve it forth (two days ago missing half an ear and with a solid plank of dried blood extending from the cut line to his jaw). When she opens the screen he immediately scampers into the kitchen and sits by the pantry, which is now, surprise surprise, loaded to overflowing with 15 varieties of canned cat food and a 50 pound bag of dried. I have no idea how it all got there, and NewWifey(tm) just gives me a blank stare when I ask.

So I wasn’t surprised when last week I came home and found NewWifey(tm) levitating about a foot off the ground with a full golden aura around her being and a look of divine joy plastered on her mug. I whistled to get her attention and she floated over.

“Guess what?” she trilled in an octave that set the neighborhood dogs howling. “After I fed Midnight, he came over and climbed on my lap! I rubbed his belly and scratched his chin and he purred and rubbed the side of his head all over me for almost an hour!”

“Honey” I said, “Midnight is a wild animal. Who knows what he’s been rubbing his head on before he applied it to you. This is New Jersey – probably dead informants. And you know what kind of diseases they carry. I seriously suggest you shower off as soon as possible and maybe give your head and pubes a precautionary layer of Agent Orange.”

But she didn’t hear me. She just floated down the hall into the bedroom, a beatific look on her face. A minute later I heard the gentle hum of a vibrator.

I knew that any reservations I had about bringing a feral, bleeding, and possibly diseased feline into our midst would fall on deaf ears now that cuddle had occurred. I’d sooner get her to give up her wedding ring than that cat now (er…perhaps not a fair comparison, considering). The point is, I knew from long experience that objections would be useless, so I’d best just suck it up and deal with whatever may happen when it happens.

It happened the next morning.

I crawled into bed, pried the still buzzing vibrator from NewWifey(tm)’s hand, put a pillow over her snoring face, and fell asleep.

At 2:30am, a half an hour before my alarm was due to jolt me to work, NewWifey(tm) shook me by the shoulders. She was sitting bolt upright in bed, her nightgown up around her knees.

“Honey, wake up” she said. She didn’t sound good.

Oh god. What now. I sat up groggily and flipped on my bedstand light.

She moaned. “My legs are on fire. I think I have hives or poison ivy or something.”

I looked at her legs. From the knees down her skin was a quilt of bright red dots with furrows of angry crimson lines connecting them.

“I can’t stop scratching!” she said, carving some new lines in with her now bloody nails.

I looked closer. “Those are flea bites” I said. “Remember when Casey or Gloria would sometimes get fleas, and we had to deal with this?” I paused and stared at her legs. “I never saw it this bad before though.”

She gave a long groan. “How could I have fleas? Casey and Gloria are dead!”

“Uh, honey….Midnight? Remember? The hour long lap dance? The face rubbing? That dead informant? I hate to say I told you so, but -”

I stopped.

My ankle itched.

I threw off my covers and looked down.

And took that picture.

You know what the worst part is? NEWWIFEY(TM) IS STILL FEEDING THE CAT!

We had to fumigate the house, throw the bedding out, shave and wax our entire bodies, and take enough Doxycycline to kill The Hulk, just in case. But that wasn’t enough to dissuade NewWifey(tm), nosiree. The next day she went out and got a blister pack of tick drops from the vet, the kind that come in toothpaste-like tubes that you squeeze onto the back of the infested animal and it spreads all over, killing (ostensibly) everything in its path. The next morning as Midnight was face down in his cream, she gave him the glop.

That was last week, and so far there’s been no repeat. Midnight is still as mangy and riddled with open sores as he was when he first showed up, but apparently all the little plague carriers hitching a ride have been vanquished. At least for now. She has to apply a tube every month to keep them from re-establishing him as their RV.

In the meantime, the scarring on our legs have subsided considerably. I can now wear socks again without screaming in agony. NewWifey(tm) still has a faint network of interlacing red lines up and down her legs but is otherwise none the worse for the experience. And at least one good thing did come out of this whole mess: she gets just as ecstatic when Midnight lets her rub his belly for an hour. But it’s not always the vibrator she reaches for afterwards now.

I think I’m gonna like this cat.

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Ah, a quick update on the peanut butter bread (previous entry, again). I did indeed make bread pudding out of the remnants, as threatened. I tore the remainder of the loaf into rough cubes, smeared some smooth peanut butter over the pieces to increase the volume (and flavor), lined a baking dish with grape jelly, added the bread, poured over a basic custard, and dotted the top with butter and a good amount more of grape jelly.

If any of you own an American style diner, this dish is your golden ticket to Millionaire’s Row. As stupid as it sounds, this peanut butter and jelly bread pudding may be the best bread pudding I ever had, let alone made. It was astounding.

Granted, the aesthetics were not perhaps what you’d call “astounding”. All that sugar on top caramelized, and the peanut butter browned even browner, and the overall effect visually was a dish that had been overcooked by perhaps a week or so.

Here, look:

Kind of a mess, huh?

Fool! You know nothing of Peanut Butter Bread and Jelly Bread Pudding. It was wonderful.

Besides, a scoop of ice cream or mountain of whipped cream on top cures all.

Seriously. You’ll make a million.

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Ok, gotta run. It’s almost time for Midnight’s dinner and hour of belly rubs. And then an hour of husband rubs.

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr….…….

Ciao!

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