How a container of sour cream cost me about $13

I will preface this post and say that I'm not very proud of myself.

Darling daughter and I went grocery shopping this morning. Darling daughter is into stacking these days. She even stacked the contents of her sandwich at lunch. While we were grocery shopping, she stacked the container of sour cream I had placed in the cart on top of some canned veggies. Toddler clumsiness and gravity soon took over and the container of sour cream took a header onto the floor.

I was a poor example for my daughter and put the container of sour cream back into the dairy cooler. When I was leaving the store, a heavy feeling fell over me. I knew I should have taken the container with me to the check out counter and offer to pay for it.

I believe in karma. This may sound silly, but I'm afraid that I will be reincarnated into an earwig as penance for the number of earwigs I've killed this summer. I knew when I got behind the wheel of the my car to go home that I would pay for my not-so-good deed. And my payback has come in the form of a club pack of chicken thighs. I bought chicken thighs on quick sale. They expire tomorrow. The lure of 30 per cent off the regular price was too much and I bought them. Since they expire tomorrow night, I started cutting them up for a stir fry. I soon noticed that they don't smell right. In fact, they smell a bit fishy. Now I'm leery of using them. Right now they are sitting in plastic baggies in the refrigerator for dear husband's final inspection. I need a second opinion on the smell.

In full meal planning and budget mode, I called the store to see if I could get my money back. While dialing the number, I knew I was pushing my luck. The woman who answered told me the store's policy is not to refund money on quick sale products. Although she offered to transfer my call to the meat department so I could discuss the issue further with a staff member, I declined I decided to accept this experience as my penance for the sour cream incident.

Although I'm a bit annoyed that I'm likely out $13, I have learned some lessons.

1. Don't let toddlers play with dairy products. It will likely spell trouble.
2. You take your chances on buying quick sale products.
3. Karma always kicks you in the butt so go with your gut and do the right thing.

How one earwig cost me $216.53

The following is a true story how one measly earwig cost me $216.53.

Yesterday, I found the house hot, very hot. It wasn't until 5:30 p.m. when I discovered the fan was on, but the central air unit wasn't. In the heat, my tolerance level is zilch, especially in the light of the fact we spent a fair bit a money two months ago in replacing our central air with a new unit. The breaker wasn't tripped, so we decided to call in a repair man.

At this point, I took my livid and angry self outside (where I discovered to my chagrin that it was much cooler outside than in my house) into the air condition glory of my Matrix and drove to an appointment. By this time, dear husband had called the heating and cooling company. The technician told him the call would be free if it was a technical issue. But we'd have to pay if, let's say, an earwig had clogged one one the parts.

When dear husband told me this little gem of information over the phone while I was waiting for my appointment to start, my livid and angry levels increased ten fold. Instantly, I knew it wasn't a technical problem. I 99.9 per cent knew that an earwig had did something and we'd be forking over some serious cash to get this problem fix. For the last week I've launched a full-on attack on earwigs. Usually, to keep my karma in check, I will go out of my way to shoo flies, ants and spiders out of the house. Not earwigs. I've got absolutely no love for earwigs. They usually meet the bottom of my shoe before I clean up their remains and flush them down the toilet. In my experience, never turn your back on an earwig. Those damn things come back to life. Always flush them down the toilet to ensure they are dead.

The other night I killed six of them with a construction level. (It was the only thing that I had handy at the time when I encountered them). Perhaps, that's when karma decided to kick me in the butt. Perhaps one of their brothers or sisters decided to seek its revenge on me by crawling into the contractor coil and clogging it. It must have been a kamikaze earwig as it died in the process.

So now it is all out war. No sympathy whatsoever will be given to any earwig that crosses my path. It will definitely meet the end of my shoe. Due to Ontario's pesticide ban, my options are limited in getting rid of the suckers. According to the nice staff member I encountered at the Home Depot, beer can help. Apparently the little buggers love beer. But it in a container with a lid resting on top of it, the earwigs will go in for the bait (beer) and drown in the process.

My aunt, who is having problems with earwigs, says spraying a solution of soapy water can help deter and kill them. At this point, I'm willing to give anything a try because my foot can't be everywhere in squashing them.

Yes, I may sound cruel. One may argue, they are just earwigs. They harm no one. However, they are damn gross and I can't have them in my house. Plus, one of them cost me a $216.53. And unless they want to reimburse me for the repair bill I now have, the war will continue.