Out-of-Season Insect Invasion Has Him Hoppin’ Mad

I think that I shall never see

A thing as disgusting as a stinkin’ rotten flea.

I don’t know which English poet penned that immortal couplet, but how right-on the bard was.

Now, let me just say for the record that I’m about the sweetest-tempered guy around, but even pussycats have their limits. And mine comes when I roll my socks down and see some little hopping speck of blood-sucking malice licking its chops.

I had never given fleas a second thought until moving to California in July of 1986 to live temporarily with a friend and his dog. Right away, my friend wanted me to meet “the big fella,” and he let the dog in. Big Fella bounded in, as excitable as he was ugly, bowled me over in my chair and we hugged and kissed for what seemed like hours.

Turned out the scamp had fleas. My friend said it was just a seasonal thing. I didn’t stop scratching till the frost was on the pumpkin.

After setting up solo housekeeping, and without Big Fella or any other pets, I figured my flea problems were history.

Alas and alack.

A few weeks ago, that old familiar itch returned. Thinking that fleas lived only in summer, I discounted the possibility that they were ba-a-a-ack.

The itching continued. Denial set in. No one wants to admit they’re flea-infested. It doesn’t take much imagination to envision newspaper headlines as the problem increases:

“Local Man Dipped as Crowd Gathers”

Or, picture a singles bar.

“Hi, how you doing?”

“Not bad, except for these fleas.”

From the outset of this war, I hadn’t wanted to resort to drastic measures, despite a friend’s advice.

“Only one thing to do,” he said, solemnly.

Our eyes met. “You don’t mean . . . ,” I said.

“That’s right,” he said. “Drop the bomb.”

I held off, but things didn’t improve. The telltale welts and bites and gaping wounds have appeared in such significant numbers that if they were all connected they would resemble the outline of Florida. The point of denial has long gone--one friend already is calling me “Lassie.”

It was time to bring in the reinforcements, so I telephoned one of the leading exterminating companies.

Fleas don’t survive in the winter, do they? I asked.

“Yes, they do,” said Elda Eubanks, one of the company’s pest-control inspectors. “The weather here is not hard for them. In another place, they will die. Here in California, they don’t.”

Are they worse near the beach (which is where I live)?

“Ah, all around the beach, we have many problems,” she said. “Constantly.”

I told her I hadn’t spotted one for the first few weeks of itching.

“They don’t stay that long on the body. They can go down into your socks. They can jump on you, bite you and jump off. They can nest in the carpet. If you’re in the car, they can stay in the car. Or they can jump down your pants.”

In my pants . Why, those dirty little . . .

“It’s nothing we can’t fix,” Elda said.

What would it cost to bomb the place, I asked.

“We don’t bomb houses. We treat them,” she said.

I described the size of my humble home and she estimated that treatment would cost $110 plus monthly mop-ups of around $35.

That’s a little too much treatment, I told her.

Yet, I fear I am losing the war.

My victories, despite superior intellectual capabilities, had been zero. Then, the other morning at work, I felt an itch. In a flash, I rolled up my pant leg, crying, “Aha!” in a manner not unlike D’Artagnan.

Behold.

Apparently lulled into overconfidence by my previous inability to dent their forces, one of the spring-loaded carnivores was lounging on my leg, having just dined on La Jambe Parsons and, no doubt, a frisky Beaujolais.

With lightning speed, I caught the unsuspecting ogre in a classic pincers movement. Within seconds, I dispatched him to a nearby wastebasket, where he assuredly died a miserable death in the bottom of a cup of cola.

That’s one little blood-sucking soldier who will tell no more tales.

Having finally confronted the enemy and gotten a bit of the blood lust myself, I surrendered to my worst instincts. Before coming to work the other day, I set off two cans of flea explosives inside my house. I don’t know about the fleas, but it certainly made me woozy.

By the time you read this, I will have set off a third device in my tiny office.

I told Elda about the bombs, and she just sighed. Those are just stopgap measures, she said. The fleas probably will be back unless I get the full treatment, she told me.

This is depressing, I said.

She said she understood. “But like I said,” she replied, cheerfully, “it’s nothing we can’t fix.”

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.