By now, I’m absolutely sure you’ve met the newest member of the fam.

Martin, or Marlon, as he chooses to go by sometimes (Martin is very inspired by the works of the Jackson 5, and assumes the identity of one of the littler brothers,) has been nothing short of an absolute blessing in my home.  He’s cute, he’s sweet, and he’s a great lap cat, so even as I write to you, he’s sitting, watching, and purring in my lap.  But as a stray, he came in with a dirty secret.

No good deed goes unpunished.

Martin came to me as a stray.  Austin’s family got us the hookup, and Austin went and picked him up the weekend I was gone in New York that my grandmother passed.  It was such a sweet surprise to come home from a draining weekend to little Martin.  But!  I discovered Martin’s (Marlon’s) dirty secret.

I was petting him when I kinda noticed he was scratching a good bit.

Like, really good.

I flipped him over, where he was all white?

Fleas!  Left and friggin right, he had fleas everywhere.

I don’t do well with a few things.  NFL.  Fantasy football.  Lice.  Mushrooms.  And fleas, evidently, I have no tolerance for.  And the fleas sent me into a cleaning tailspin.

I tried Frontline.  Wasn’t working.  (Come to find out, fleas are kind of resistant to it). And finally, I called the vet.  Little Martin needed his kitten stuff anyways, so it was time.  And they told me I had to bathe him.  Have you ever tried bathing a cat?  It was really fun, lemme tell ya, and I don’t have vision anymore because he scratched both my eyes out when I dunked him in the sink.  While he ran around, traumatized, post-bath, I salted every soft surface in my home and vacuumed. And finally, I used this disgusting invention called a flea comb to literally comb the little parasites off my dear Little Martin.

I’m still hopelessly in love with my cat, and at the same time, terrified that there’s a nest of fleas in my hair.  At any rate, I think we got his fleas under control with a dose of Revolution, that bath from the depths of hell, and a thorough scrubdown of the home.  Ah, to be a pet owner!