Chipmunk, Redux.

Well, for the past week, I have had flies in my office. Not just a few flies. So many that it has made my skin crawl. I believe I killed over 100 flies (yep, 100!) in just three days. It was like Medusa; every time I'd kill off a fly, it seemed as though two new ones took its place. They were everywhere. I thought perhaps a dirty diaper was left in my office, or something, because I was desperate to find the source of the flies. I cleaned out the office, looked under the fridge - woh was that dusty! (but I didn't clean it. Oh well.) Looked under the piano, behind the toy shelves, but nada.

I kept saying to myself "where the heck are those flies coming from?" and my four-year-old's wizened voice kept piping up "they're flying through the kitty door mommy". This, I dismissed. Who has ever heard of a fly flying through a veritable maze to get into the house. (Ominous omen number one.) The kitty door, known as the "Let Meow't" allows the cat ample egress and entry through a U shaped box tunnel without the pet owner needing to open the door sixteen times a day at the whim of kitty. Apparently, though, my kitty sees it as a means of bringing new little pets into the house (see yesterday's posting...)

After about an hour of sniffing around everywhere in the house to find the source of the flies, I eventually got over to the cat door. As I got closer, the smell got stronger. (Ominous omen number two). Sure enough, as I was looking at it, a fly zipped out into the house. Also, the big cat, Watson, was absolutely refusing to go through the cat door. (Ominous omen number three.) I thought it was just because he was lazy and didn't want to jump up to the opening.

Logan and I did a little snooping around the Let Meow't. He looked in one side, but didn't see anything. I looked in the other. Nothing. Relief. There's no dead animal corpse I have to deal with. But still, I had a funny feeling. So I unmounted the Let Meow't from its perch in the window and pulled it outside. I donned chicken pulling gloves. (Latex gloves from my mother, to be used in the rare occurance that I debone a rotisserie chicken, which is to say, never.) Over the gloves, I pulled elbow length plastic newspaper bag, just in case the chicken pulling gloves weren't sufficient enough to keep out whatever putrified matter might be in the box.

I reached in, and touched what felt like a soft baby toy. I pulled it out. There it was. The vile, foul remains of another poor chipmunk. Why it stayed in the Let Meow't instead of either running out or into my house, I won't understand. But there it was. Looking just like yesterday's chippy. But. But... This chippy was a little less, um, perky looking, than yesterday's. His belly was a teeming mass of maggots. Yick. Logan stooped down to look at the chipmunk, then he looked at me, "It's dead, Mommy." Why yes, Logan, you are correct. It's dead. He enjoyed looking at the maggots. At least one of us enjoyed the show. I wrapped up the poor thing in the newspaper bag, sprayed it with bugspray, and chucked it into our garbage can.

I'd love to say that I never saw the chippy again, but the garbage isn't picked up until Friday, and I disposed of it Monday. I'm sure he and his fly buddies will be seen again soon.