I Am Completely Serious

Bugs don't actually ever "develop a resistance" to pesticides, right? The fleas aren't actually "getting immune" to the old pet flea meds? These things aren't antibiotics, they're poisons that eat through the little things' chitin and eggshells and stuff. How exactly are you going to overcome that?

Bacteria are able to develop immunities to antibiotics that because their life-cycles are really, really short - they evolve really fast. Also, because huge populations of them are constantly being bomboarded with huge quantities of antibiotics due to Industrial Shit I Do Not Actually Understand, so there's plenty of opportunity for one bacteria to come up with a helpful mutation to resist a specific antibiotic and reproduce a lot.

Bugs don't live long, but they live at least a few days, which means population-wide genetic changes are going to take orders of magnitude longer than they do for bacteria. And they've got other places to live than on crops and domestic animals, and we're not spraying pesticides in the forest or giving flea pills to deer.

So I feel like if bugs are "learning" anything on a genetic level, the majority of survival-conducive mutations that actually get passed on are going to be the ones that tell them to stay away from humans and our stuff, rather than tiny changes that make their exoskeletons a little tougher in the face of something corrosive.

Evolution likes path-of-least-resistance shit like that, right? Even if a flea all of a suddem mutates up a total resistance to pesticide X, and that mutation doesn't impact them negatively otherwise, and that flea survives contact with said pesticide and breeds, it's not going to do as well reproductively as another flea on a deer in the forest that's got another mutation that tells fleas to slightly prefer deer/raccoons/bears/etc over dogs/cats/horses/etc. The forest flea has plenty of potential mates because no one's given its deer any Frontline-or-generic-equivalent-thereof; the house flea, in a house where most of the other fleas just got massacred, obviously has fewer opportunities.

(I feel bad for the mutant flea now...)

The only way I can see the "fleas get used to pesticides" narrative making sense is if some of the pesticides actually are antibiotics, and they function by messing up a symbiotic bacteria that lives on/in fleas, and that bacteria is actually the thing that mutates...?

But even then, it would have to be slower, because so few fleas ever come in contact with flea killer in the first place.

Anyway, I refuse to buy still-under-patent flea killer anymore because the generic stuff is fine.

my cat when I get in the shower every single morning: *whine whine yowl yowl heartbroken crying nyehhhhhh* continuously until I get back out

my cat every time he realizes I'm under the blankets in bed: *pats and experimentally scratches around the blankets for at least five minutes to make sure he knows exactly where every part of my body can be found*

my cat at dawn every single morning: *tries to claw his way under my bedroom door*

my cat when I accidentally shut him in an empty room: *peaceful and silent acceptance of his situation for the entirety of the >2 hours it takes for me to notice that he's missing*

him: *betrayed nyehhhhhh*

me: Dude, I already gave you one piece of kale, that is plenty for you.

him: *tries to stick his head in my salad*

me: *puts him on the floor with his piece of kale*

He just really likes greens.

Me, on the phone: Bye, Mom -

Dad, yelling somewhere behind her: ASK HER IF SHE WANTS TWO CATS

Me: I don't want the cats.

Mom: She doesn't want the cats, dear.

Dad: No! Give me the phone, give it to me!

Mom: *sigh*

Dad, solemnly: Now, honey, listen. There are two new cats here.

Me: I am all catted out.

Buoyancy the Cat, lying beside me apparently asleep: *actually growls??? which he never does??????*

Me: ...And Bu just actually growled??? Which he never does?????? - So, his answer's also no!

Dad: Just come look at them, honey, please.

Me: Take those cats to the shelter.

Dad: No, listen, listen, they're really talented, they're smart, they were singing - they joined hands and sang the Puss in Boots song -

Me: This sounds unlikely, Dad!

Dad: They were singing together the whole way to the house in the car!

Me: This is not a point in the cats' favor.

Dad: The cats are here. They're here at the house. They're here. *hangs up*

(He will probably take them to the shelter.)

I put the fake Angel on a paper towel but it smelled too rubbing alcohol-y initially so I put it on the table. Bu sniffed it just now and then ran out of the room in a panic.

...I just heard him knock the desktop out of sleep mode.

#hes blogging

Since the cat was trying to eat it and he knows best, I just tried on the fake C5. It smells about right, to my fuzzy recollection? I don’t own any of the real stuff to compare it to, and I’ve only tried it on myself once, but the scent is properly initializing the expected traumatic scent-memories of being induced to hug and/or make conversation with strangers at family and political events.

(I don’t like C5. Or White Diamonds. They should back off and stop asking me how my horse princess book is. I am trying to read my horse princess book.)

So, an attempt was made! The Dollar Tree’s perfume supplier is not just dumping random stuff into these bottles. And they didn’t overdo the aldehydic elements to the point of harshness, like a dupe I tried a few years back.

It’s already wearing off, though. If I wanted a fake C5 with staying power (I don’t), I’d probably order some oil from one of those Etsy or eBay shops.

if he'd made sure the new one was dead before hiding it.

Rookie mistake, Bu.

I am extremely fucked up, and got him treats and toys and a few cans of fancier-than-usual food, instead of getting myself intoxicated. Because I feel that intoxication causes... cysts? Grief cysts?????? Similar to cystic acne, hard and encapsulated and uncomfortable to sleep on. Different in that Vitamin A is unlikely to serve as an efficacious treatment.