Being a single parent is hard work. Do I even need to say it? But sometimes the world seems to conspire against you and delivers even more unexpected surprises into your little home.

Exhibit A

Consider exhibit A: a photograph of an item I got in my mail yesterday. It consists of a three page letter, two informative brochures, two additonal copies of the brochure in spanish, two other guides, and a tabloid size four page newsletter printed on plastic coated paper. Also note that the whole thing arrived in a full letter size envelope. And who is the generous sender of this information? None other than Novato Disposal and Recycling Service.

If that wasn’t bad enough, the one piece of information I did need from this packet, was a note at the beginning of the three page letter letting me know when my new garbage day would be. Unfortunately, the blank line where a person was to write in the new collection day was left blank. So I still don’t know what day my garbage is to be collected. Hmm. Any more mailings like this and I’ll probably have to order some larger recycling bins.

Exhibit B

We move on to crazy maker number two. Meet my new enemy in Exhibit B, the odorous house ant of northern California. This little visitor, and thousands more just like him, decided that my kitchen would be the perfect place to spend their summer vacation. These little pests make easily identifiable freeways of thousands of ants that cut across floors and furniture in search of their quarry, namely, my kitchen pantry.

I have to admit, my experience with ants in the midwest did not prepare me for these cunning devils. They move with purpose and speed. Sweep up a line and another will form within 20 minutes in the same place! Being the environmentally concious guy that I am, I ran off to the nearest Whole Foods market to find a responsible and safe way to get rid of them. I returned home with a product that assured me it would rid my home of the ants and leave a clean all natural smell. I doused the vermin and I actually think I heard them laughing. They plowed through the spray like a summer shower. I was vexed. If all natural solutions failed me, it was time to invest in nuclear weapons. I returned from Safeway with a giant size can of RAID. My newfound faith in poisonous toxins was rewarded. They retreated hastily and I did a victory dance.

I awoke the next morning to find that their population had doubled! I learned from a website that when ants return to their nest with dead comrades, it inspires the queen to start laying eggs at an even faster rate! The only solution, according to the website was to poison the queen.

This required buying ant food traps that allow the worker ants to return the nest with slow acting poison in the hope that some of this would be fed to the queens. (I read that odorous house ant nests have multiple queens) I purchased some ant traps and placed them about in my kitchen. Imagine my rage when I saw hours later that the little traps were being avoided like an all meat barbecue at a Berkeley vegetarian convention. I forgot that these were CALIFORNIA ants. Of course they wouldn’t go for any ol’ fast food. They demanded ant haute cuisine.

So at last I purchased liquid ant traps from TERRO. These are the French Laundry of ant traps. Expensive, but damn if I scarcely laid them down when the ants swarmed to them like starving...um...ants. The only down side is that you have to leave the little buggers alone for a whole day so they can carry the poison back to the nest. I waited and watched with disgust as the ants diverted their attention from my groceries and started taking home the new stuff.

The result? No ants for the past 72 hours. Mission accomplished. Thank you TERRO!

Exhibit C

Finally, not all crazy makers arrive from the outside world. Some are self inflicted. Consider Exhibit C. A photograph of a pack of wires I pulled from a drawer I’ve been in denial about for too long. Well, I hunkered down this afternoon and attacked it. I’ll give you the good news. Not only did I get them sorted out, but while I was, um, wrapped up in the task, Amélie came and sat on the floor next to me and dove right in. Turns out she is particularly good at undoing knots and her newly discovered skill kept her smiling through the whole job. Meanwhile we were able to have some great father-daughter time and talked about all sorts of important things on her mind. The time passed too quickly! We sorted the wires, wound them, and stuffed them into large freezer bags by type. See Exhibit D. Who knew that crazy makers could actually be a catalyst for quality time?

Exhibit D

So with those surprises out of the way, I can hope that next week is only filled with cleaning, groceries, cooking, child care, bills, work, schedules with the ex, paperwork, quarterly taxes, and laundry, Then I’ll know for a fact that it is a holiday week. Wishing you all a great 4th of July. Be safe!

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