Mmmm, that tastes like Brooks Brothers!

Anyone who knows me knows I have a strong domestic streak, in that "domestic goddess in an evening gown at 5PM for drinks" kind of way. I don't particularly love cooking for the sake of cooking, but love entertaining. Same thing with baking - if I bake something and I'm alone, chances are it will go mostly untouched into the bin; I love baking for an event or a friend or for my largely undeserving coworkers.
What is the point here? Oh yes - so obviously, since housework like cleaning involves no crowds of friends or bellinis, I despise it. Truly. I hate how the skin on my fingers feels cracked and just when you collapse, exhausted, you see a tremendous pile of crap that went previously unnoticed. I routinely forget to stock up on cleaning products and have been trying for weeks to clean my toilet with Windex (yeah...not so much).

And so obviously I'd neglect the heck out of the dark corners of my closets -- and, oh yes, I have FOUR huge closets, stocked with a lot of clothing I forget about -- and for the past few months, every so often I'd notice a teeeny tiny little bug with a lot of hairs all over it dead on the floor. Since I don't have a roach problem or any other varmin issues, I never thought much of it, just swept them up.

Until.

I've started noticing the neatest holes, only in my nicest clothing, of course - these little bastards want NOTHING to do with the H&M junk - that have rendered, no joke, probably 15-18 items of clothing unwearable, and another 10 that have holes I can live with (including my favorite, knock-their-socks-off Brooks Brothers tweed suit). They went to bloody town on the first designer piece I ever bought, a Gianfranco Ferre coat, which admittedly I haven't worn in two years after I popped a button off it, and made mincemeat of some pieces I had made in Vietnam that, sure, I paid $18 bucks for but I loved them completely. The problem is that frankly, I have a shopping habit that's gotten out of hand - I've recently made a point of not shopping because I am happy, because I am sad, because I got a promotion at work, because I got yelled at at work; the problem is that shopping was becoming appropriate for every emotion, which is getting expensive and counterproductive - the more I had in my closet, the less likely I was to remember it was there. So I've been curbing the shopping and going through my closets and donating everything I haven't worn for six months. And I'm finally noticing how busy these little suckers have been.

So I declared jihad and bought the most toxic spray I could find, vaccuumed into every crevice and sprayed enough of this stuff to ensure that my lungs will be non-functional in about two years. I wrapped my three new cashmere sweaters (ok, so the shopping thing is a slow process) in two layers of plastic and am hanging them from my ceiling fan.

Coincidentally - or maybe not - I have had a miserable time with allergies this fall, very broadly coinciding with the full on, no-holds-barred insurgency these asshats are raging in my closets. Of course, it'll now be impossible to tell if it's the insecticide or the bugs that's choking me senseless at night...