Soggy Dogs and Moldy Sandwiches

When I'm home, I love helping out with household chores. Give me some Clorox and rubber gloves, and I'll make your bathroom shine; I can go to town with a bucket of hot, Murphy's Soap Oil and a rag; I can clean out corners and dust the dining room like nobody's business. I was expecting to perform these and many more such chores this summer, but since being home from school, I've performed a couple that I wasn't expecting.

Yesterday, while Mom was having a meeting with some ladies from church, Charlotte and I were assigned the task of giving Moosey a bath. Poor Moosey hates being wet, but she's a good sport and doesn't seem to hold it against me that I was the one to put her into the tub. I didn't mind scrubbing down our beloved dog, except for the fact that my hands smelled like Moosey's "Ocean Breeze" shampoo for a few hours afterward.

On the complete opposite end of the pleasant scale was the task I undertook today. Last night, Sarah realized that her lunch box had been sitting in seldom-cleaned corner of her room, housing a nasty old sandwich and family of maggots. Yes. Maggots. (Insert gagging sounds and looks of disgust here.) Ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew ew. We threw away the entire lunch box, but today was the day for Sarah to examine the remainder of her room for larvae. (She actually put on her cleaning to-do list to "look for larva.") For a while, Charlotte and I sat in the kitchen, enjoying a our books and a pleasant breakfast accompanied by intermittent screams from Sarah as she discovered more eggs and larvae in her bedroom. Sarah was holding up OK until she found a particularly gross patch of nasty; she didn't scream this time, but rather walked slowly into the kitchen with me and Charlotte and started crying. Sarah cries a lot when she throws her tantrums, but rarely does she cry in this truly heart-wrenching manner. It was then that I decided that nobody should have to clean up maggots alone.

Armed with galoshes and latex gloves, Sarah and I began to uncover new eggs and larvae. They were mostly confined to the corner where she lunch box originally festered, and we soon cleared the premises of all maggots. (Or at least we hope we got them all.) Hopefully, Sarah learned her lesson that she should never leave food in her room, and I learned my lesson that maggots are as gross as I always thought they were.

*What's been your most disgusting household chore?*
*Have you ever encountered maggots?