Of monks, fleas and Alan Greenspan

The situation in Burma is dire, with the military government suppressing dissent by disappearing the country’s saffron-robed monks.

In the United States, appearances are less dire but the Patriot Act still stands, and now through an act of Congress, Verizon won’t have to pay the piper for ratting on its paying customers.

I am concerned that Alan Greenspan seems to have no knowledge of the extent of “billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars” gone missing in Iraq.

The world is roiling with troubles and all I can think about is fleas.

Yes, reader, abandon your admiring thoughts of me and my charming family. We have fleas. When you have fleas, and I hope you never will, you can think of little else.

How we got fleas is still up in the air, or dancing on the carpet.

One theory holds that our daughter imported them from the Ninth Ward while doing community service in New Orleans this summer. While it is true she experienced a flea infestation in her barracks in NOLA, if this theory is true, it means the fleas have been reproducing since July, and by now have amassed an army the size of Burma’s.

I prefer to think the fleas are local and gained entry to our home via Aengus, the dog. In a misguided attempt at empathy, I removed Aengus from his monthly regimen of Frontline after a friend’s dog died of cancer at age 4. You may wonder at my circuitous logic. Now, so do I.

My friend’s theory was that all of the vaccinations and topical poisons that our dogs are prescribed are actually doing more harm than good. And, that the vets who prescribe them are only padding their checkbooks with profits, not helping their patients.

I am not a conspiracy theorist by nature. Even with all the proven conspiracies over the years, I usually reserve judgment until the Senate hearings.

But the emotional argument was too strong for my tender feelings. I stopped using Frontline on our miniature schnauzer. Besides, I reasoned, we never had fleas, so we must be flea-proof.

Wrong. We never had fleas because we always used Frontline.

Now, fleas are all I think about. I wake in the morning wondering if the next life cycle is about to begin. My ankles are rubbed raw with bites, and every itch raises hackles of fear.

With three houses and two cars in the family, the amount of poison I have spread on carpets and porches and car upholstery could be used as grounds for the war in Iraq if they had been stored by Saddam.

Friends are not encouraging. They hold cans of flea powder out at us from the doorway. We are not invited in. They say discouraging things like “those things are everywhere—they live on air.”

The phrase “flea-bag hotel” resounds in my ears as I walk the dog.

And global warming is no help, providing ideal conditions for flea procreation in October.

These minute and unthinking creatures have brought us to our knees—or would if we weren’t afraid to be so close to their breeding ground. Our usual intellectual pursuits are scrapped for reading the labels of products like “Knockout,” guaranteed to harm animals, fish and humans. Spread it on!

Why bother with the atom bomb for deterrence? Harvest fleas and deliver them in the mail. Why, a few dozen well-placed fleas in some caves in Pakistan might send bin Laden scurrying into the open, robes flying.

Maybe these fleas are a conspiracy, after all. Delivered to the homes of thousands of liberal journalists who can now think of nothing but fleas, they are the next step in thought suppression.

I’ll withhold my judgment until the Senate hearings. It will be worth it to see all those Senators itching and scratching themselves raw.

After the infestation is conquered, maybe they’ll get around to grilling Greenspan about the billions that were lost while we were chasing fleas.