The Skunk, The Cockroach and The Parent Teacher Conference

Last night I remembered a particularly ugly day in my generally beautiful life. It makes a rather funny story that I will call “The Skunk, The Cockroach and The Parent Teacher Conference”

Let me start by telling you right off that I was dieting, I'm not a pleasant person to be around when I'm hungry and I also think a calorie shortage slows my brain down just a pinch. Anyway...My dog went out for a tinkle around 2am. He acted as though getting outside was extremely urgent and that he Might consider using the rug if I didn’t get a move on, otherwise I wouldn’t have dragged myself out of bed. Moments later my nose alerted me to a terrible skunky smell and I found my reeking and morose puppy on the porch. I really, really didn't think letting him inside was the best plan, however, since I wasn’t functioning at full brainpower, I did anyway. Ordering him to sleep in his closet, I climbed back into bed and hoped maybe when I woke the smell would have dissipated. This seemed like a reasonable solution at the time.

The next day, I found my entire house smelled of skunk, I smelled like skunk, my entire closet of clothes smelled like skunk and I had a sneaking suspicion that the mutt spooned with me during the night. Sooooo...first order of business was bathing the dog. I can't even begin to describe to y'all how sucky this experience was, but I felt like the stink was much tempered, and nearly gone entirely after I gave him a shot or two of my pure grace perfume. And Febreeze. Lots of Febreeze.

And then there's the cockroach. Seven months prior to this interesting day, Santa brought my adorable child a cockroach for Christmas. Not just any run of the mill creepy cockroach. OHno. He has a Giant Madagascar Hissing Cockroach for a pet. Don’tcha just love Santa? The disgusting, six inch long, bug from Hell likes to be warm SOOOO while I'm using the oven I often place his little terrarium on the stove top. Even now I’m sure you’re thinking, “Why, that doesn’t sound intelligent at all.” WELLLLL you’re likely right in that assumption and my next move will probably clinch your belief that I have an IQ below that of your average frog.

I decided that while I was cooking dinner on this lovely, quiet evening and the dog was drying from his second bath and the kid was playing with his Pokemon cards at the kitchen table that I would clean the roach's home. When I opened the lid, it jumped over the top of my hand, scuttled around on top of the stove and disappeared down into the heating element in a blink. I think I said, "OH SHIT." and I’m pretty sure that I calmly told my then 6 year old son that I had just lost his cockroach inside the stove. It may surprise you to hear that my kid. Freaked. Out.

In an effort to look like I had this situation under control, I started jabbing kitchen utensils, knives and fingers down into the hole the bug went down as if this was the answer. Then I began worrying that I was going to scare the thing into running down into the oven to feast on the fishsticks and that just wouldn’t do…I needed those fishsticks. Diet-schmiet. I rescued the delicious golden rods, tossed a plate of food in front of my bawling son and reminded him, Ever So Sweetly, to eat quickly… ‘cause we've got to be at his parent teacher conference in half an hour and I still needed get the damn roach out of my stove.

I preface this next bit by saying I'm still not thinking clearly as I STILL haven't eaten. I decided the only way to get the bug to come out in time to get myself dressed and out the door for the conference would be to turn on the burners of the gas stove. I realized what a bad idea this was ONLY when that little boy of mine with Ketchup on his chin jumped up, overturned his chair and ran about the kitchen in a mad panic with his eyes closed screaming, "You're killing Stinky! You're killing Stinky!"

Of course I turned off the burners (because setting fire to a bug was A Very Bad Idea) and then I took a moment to hatch a new plan. When we lifted off the entire stove top we found a very happy, toasty warm roach up under the lid. A good shake over the terrarium and Stinky was back where he belonged, but now I had only  5 minutes to get dressed for the conference. I rushed us into the car (No, you may not take your roach) and we hustled over to Anderson Elementary where my Ketchup smeared kid informed his somewhat horrified teacher that I tried to cook his cockroach for dinner AND his father told me I smelled. Yeah, well, terrific.