This Post Might Make You Itch

This morning I had some tea and stroked the cat enthusiastically. Then I got out of bed, and wrote a generally positive To Do List. (I know it was generally positive because it didn't include any items such as BECOME BETTER PERSON underlined six times, and HAVE MORE MONEY decorated with skulls and bloody daggers.) I finished the list, replied to a few emails, and took myself off to have a shower before starting a day which I was sure was going to be positive and productive, peppered with only the mildest of self-flagellation.

I dis-robed, turned on the shower, and stepped in. I began to sing a bit. As I la-la-la-ed, I noticed a small, weird black thing on my side. Upon further, horrified inspection it was very small, very weird, really only brown-y black and very gross. I immediately assumed it was a mole, sprung into melanomic existence and about to make sure that every future To Do List included the item DON'T DIE OF CANCER TODAY. Panicking slightly and no longer singing, I poked at it. Actually, chipped in some long dormant logical part of my brain, I didn't have a mole there yesterday, so the likelihood of developing one and getting cancer in it overnight is pretty small.

I was relieved to have avoided cancer, but I was no closer to solving the mystery of the small weird black thing that was so determinedly clinging to me in spite of the shower water sluicing past it.

I poked again. It came off slightly, increasing the disgusting factor a bit. I picked at it. It doggedly and disgustingly remained. "This" I said aloud to the rubber ducks lounging casually on the side of the bath "is disgusting". Their silence rang with agreement.

I picked and poked, and finally the small, weird, black thing came free. I held close to my eyes, such was its smallness, but far from my mouth, such was its weirdness.

"Oh my God."

Out of the corner of my eye I am sure I saw a rubber duck gag.

It was a tiny, tiny insect. Probably a flea.

A flea had dived from the cat and attached itself to my innocent skin, there to extract elevenses from me until it was satisfied. Then I had stepped hummingly into the shower, whereby it had drowned horribly, leaving its disgusting mouth still clinging on to me, resulting in a considerable amount of fingernail force needing to be used to pry it off.

"This is disgusting." I turned to the ducks, but they had edged over to the corner of the bath, and were facing the tiles. They wanted no further part in my disgusting flea/shower drama.

I inspected my skin, where a red bump was forming. I inspected the flea, which remained resolutely and disgustingly dead.

There I stood. In the shower, mouth open in horror, holding a small ex-flea.

"I am disgusting" I called to the recoiling ducks. "Nobody must ever know about this. I definitely won't write a blog post about it. That would definitely constitute a blogging overshare."

I flicked the soggy parasite out of the window and picked up the shampoo, already composing the first line in my head.