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	<title>Crazy People &#187; Vermin</title>
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	<description>Living With Mental Illness</description>
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		<title>My Life Sucks</title>
		<link>http://maureencooke.com/my-life-sucks</link>
		<comments>http://maureencooke.com/my-life-sucks#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 Jun 2010 14:25:48 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Second Site</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Vermin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Writing]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Centipedes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Maureen Cooke]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mouse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Sun Spider]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Wind Spider]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[Me and the Vermin: An Update Yuck yuck yuck and a big, huge double yuck. My life totally sucks. Two nights ago, I was on the phone, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big ugly bug whip across the floor, all four cats in hot pursuit. I followed the cats, checked <a href='http://maureencooke.com/my-life-sucks'>[...]</a>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<h3>Me and the Vermin: An Update</h3>
<p><br style="”height: 4em”;" /><br />
Yuck yuck yuck and a big, huge double yuck.</p>
<p>My life totally sucks.</p>
<p>Two nights ago, I was on the phone, when out of the corner of my eye, I saw a big ugly bug whip across the floor, all four cats in hot pursuit. I followed the cats, checked out the bug. Looked like a scorpion. I screamed, threw down the phone, went to find a shoe, a book. Anything that would kill the big, ugly, incredibly fast bug.</p>
<p>Found my crocs. (Don&#8217;t even get me started on how I managed to end up with a pair of bright pink, Minnie Mouse crocs) Took a better look at the bug racing across my floor &#8211; did I mention exactly how fast this thing was? Realized, it wasn&#8217;t a scorpion but <a href="http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0407/feature5/index.html">a wind spider</a>. I smashed it with my bright pink Minnie Mouse crocs. Again and again and again.</p>
<p>Stopped screaming. Got back on the phone. At least, it wasn&#8217;t a scorpion. At least, it wasn&#8217;t poisonous. Figured the cats could kill the next one.  Until&#8230;</p>
<p>I got off the phone, went into the kitchen for a soda. There was another friggin&#8217; wind spider racing across the floor. Grabbed the first thing I found &#8211; a water bottle. Smashed the thing. Water bottle broke. The spider raced away. The cats came running. Grabbed a piece of the bottle and smashed it again. Killed the head, the body kept twitching.</p>
<p>What in the hell did I ever do to deserve a twitching, dying wind spider? And I&#8217;m sorry, Mr. Arachnid, I&#8217;m sure you&#8217;re just a swell, little bug, but you scare the shit out of me. Still, I couldn&#8217;t just leave the thing twitching, so I went for those bright pink crocs, killed the spider dead.</p>
<p>Sigh.</p>
<p>It gets worse.</p>
<p>This morning I got up a little after 7 &#8211; kind of late for me &#8211; let the dogs out. The cats came running, wrapped themselves around my legs. So together we walked &#8211; hobbled actually &#8211; across the living room floor to the kitchen. Didn&#8217;t have my glasses on. Saw something on the floor. Thank God it was an unmoving something.</p>
<p>Still&#8230;</p>
<div id="attachment_4999" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 310px"><a href="http://maureencooke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0571.jpg"><img class="size-medium wp-image-4999" title="Centipede1" src="http://maureencooke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/IMG_0571-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">They&#39;re Baaaccckkk!</p></div>
<p>Together, the 3 cats and I went to check it out. A centipede! A great big, fat, disgusting dead centipede. All I</p>
<p>could think is it&#8217;s not fair. Not fair not fair not fair.</p>
<p>I didn&#8217;t do anything to deserve centipedes &#8211; dead or alive &#8211; in the house. Yuck.</p>
<p>And still it gets worse.</p>
<p>Headed down the hall to my office, saw &#8211; again on the floor &#8211; what appeared to be a clump of stuffing from the couch &#8211; as I&#8217;ve continually mentioned, I have really bad cats. And these really bad cats like to chew the underside of my couch and pull out the stuffing. (Anyone want to adopt these bad cats?)</p>
<p>I look closer at the &#8220;stuffing.&#8221; It is a dead, flat, dehydrated mouse.</p>
<div id="attachment_5011" class="wp-caption alignright" style="width: 202px"><a href="http://maureencooke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/mouse_28.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-5011  " title="mouse_28" src="http://maureencooke.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/mouse_28.jpg" alt="" width="192" height="100" /></a><p class="wp-caption-text">I so wish you hadn&#39;t scared the hell out of me.</p></div>
<p>Sigh.</p>
<p>The only upside of this? How on earth could my day get any worse? (And please, God, I&#8217;m not taunting You. I&#8217;m not asking that You throw anything else my way. Thank You.)</p>
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