I've been fighting a war the past twenty hours. A war, Internet. There have been moments of success. And moments of failure. Tears have been shed, and "lives" lost, though none from my army, thankfully. But my enemy consists of thousands. On my side, it's just me and Nicki. It's been tough. It's been a hard fight against determined opponents. But I think we've turned the corner.

Alright, like most wars, this one began because Monday night was Taco Night. Now, I love Taco Night, kinda more than anything. I brought it to the family, in fact. And like most people's Taco Night expertise, I learned how to do it from my mom (except she only used hard shells...a sign of the times - it's sad how closed-minded people were back then. ) So Monday was Taco Night. That means somebody's gotta cook a whole lot of ground beef and season it just right. That somebody is, no doubt, moi. Sure it's a kinda easy culinary task, but I don't think anyone does it better than this girl. I season just right. I stir just right (though not as often as other, more neurotic, Taco Nighters). I'm all over it. But - and here's really where the war began - like most men when they're told to go out and buy meat for the children and ladyfolk, Bill Henrickson buys about six times too much. So, there was a ton of ground chuck left over even after I made enough taco meat for eleven people. (Think about how much taco meat that is real quick. Yeah. That's a lot of taco meat.) Bill told me not to worry about the leftover (uncooked) meat, saying he would BBQ up some hamburgers tomorrow ("or sometime real soon"), but I've heard that malarkey from him before and I knew it wasn't true. That meat was just gonna sit in my refrigerator until I couldn't stand to look at anymore. Bill was never gonna make hamburgers. He was gonna buy another 25 pounds from Costco and make hamburgers with that...IF he even went through with making hamburgers at all, which is a sizeable IF. No doubt about it. So, that night, I tossed the meat in the trashcan outside, not thinking twice.

I should always think twice, I suppose. Or at least pay attention when the sanitation workers go on strike and don't pick up anyone's trash all week. They normally pick it up on Tuesday (day after Taco Night), but when I went out there on Sunday night with another few bags, the cans were still all full from the week before. Full of trash bags, a few boxes, and about nine thousand living, squirming maggots. I threw up immediately: some in the trashcans, some on the trashcans. It was the most disgusting thing I've ever seen. Thousands of maggots, Internet. No one wanted to help me do anything about it. Bill suggested spraying them down with a hose - like that was a real trailblazing idea - but that was about all he brought to the table. "What can I tell you, Margie," he said in that "your mess, you clean it up" kind of way. "I told you not to throw that hamburger meat out just yet. I was gonna grill some burgers..." Yeah right! So I bypassed enlisting anyone else and went to fixer: one Nicki Grant. She's like the Henrickson version of "Mr. Wolf" in Pulp Fiction. (Yes, I've seen Pulp Fiction. Get over yourself, Internet, and don't act all surprised.) So we bought masks, gloves, and galoshes and took the fight to the maggots. At first, our strategy wasn't that successful. Oddly enough, maggots seem to enjoy being sprayed with straight up poisonous bug spray. An interesting, and annoying, finding. This enemy was proving to be quite determined.

Phase two of our operation then began. Our weapon of choice was a boatload of boiling water. (I ended up adding some bleach and some Pine Sol just to up the dosage, but I'm pretty sure the hot water was the real active ingredient in our weapon of mass destruction.) We used every eye on every stove in all three houses, boiling water. We had taken all the other trash out of the can so what we ended up with was just a plastic trash can, filled with water and, now floating, dead maggots. Yes, that was better than live maggots, but we clearly hadn't thought about what we were supposed to do after we won the war on maggots. This was probably the grossest part, but we had to dump the water out, and use the lid to trap them all in the can. That was the second time I vomited. Nicki did, too. (Nicki threw up, then started laughing hysterically. That was weird. I cry when I puke. She laughs. "TomAto, tomato," I guess. People are different.) So that worked pretty well, some got out and we had to pick them up off the ground, but most stayed in. The problem still remained: trash can full of maggots. They were alive and dry, then dead and floating, now dead and wet. Better, but not too much better. That's pretty much when we got desperate, or just fed up. Nicki duct taped the lid of the trashcan on tight and wrote a message on the can itself with a big, thick Sharpie: "Garbage Man: This trash can itself is trash. There are maggots inside so, be advised. But Please Dispose Of The Entire Can. Thank you. And congratulations on your successful strike. We were all rooting for you."

All of this is to say that Nicki Grant - The She-Wolf - is a genius.