The Mayflies have come and gone.

The week following our buying "The Lakehouse", my two sistahs, Mere and Joanne, flew to South Carolina with me to clean and stock the house. Our new lake home had not been occupied in five years, so there were lots of critters to contend with: mostly mice and spiders along with their poop and webs. I didn't know at the time that Joanne was deathly afraid of spiders. I thought Mere would have been the one afraid of bugs because she is such a "lady". Not much surprises me these days, but finding out this fact did.

The prior week Larry and I bought basic, low-maintenance furniture: beds for every room, a sturdy kitchen table and chairs to accommodate the weight of big family members, wrought iron outdoor furniture for the living room with cushions that didn't mind wet bathing suits, and a lovely, stained-glass floor lamp with a Dragonfly motif. This motif then became the logo of "The Lakehouse". We wanted relatively maintenance free furniture because we only planned to use the house up to four times per year, and gave his family keys and free use of the property any time they wanted. We also bought a vacuum cleaner.

My sistahs and I got busy cleaning every room, wall, closet and cabinet. I encouraged them to choose a bedroom to sleep in and clean that. Poor Joanne chose the largest room in back and unfortunately for her, it also housed the largest and greatest number of spiders. Lots of screams emanated from there during the cleaning process, but she survived. She hasn't come back in eight years, but we try not to take it personally. Then again, Mere hasn't come back either, but maybe that's just a coincidence or an indication of how busy life is. I hope.

Once the house was reasonably critter free and clean, we took off in our rented car to the nearest WalMart. I won't go into the politics of this company, but it and Kmart and the most popular department stores down here. Target did not exist here eight years ago. That's all I'm going to say about that.

There's nothing greater for a woman than being able to "shop 'til you drop" on someone else's dime. So my sistahs and I had a ball cleaning out the store. I have never had to completely outfit a house before, and neither had they, so we had to think of everything that might be needed. We bought all the basic appliances: toaster, blender, and coffee pot. They helped me choose dishes, glasses, flatware, pots and pans, bedding, towels, etc. You get the idea. Mere likes to smoke when she drinks, so she bought wrought iron mini-frying-pan ashtrays. They were very cute. Joanne smoked also, so she was grateful.

When we thought we had everything, the three of us managed to push four over-flowing carriages to the cash register. Mouths dropped open when we arrived, and one man and woman stuck around, "Because we have to know how much". The tally came to over one thousand dollars, and then my greatest fear happened. My Visa card rejected the purchase. I was astonished because I knew there was plenty of money on the card, and immediately flashed back to days of old when credit card rejections were the norm in my life. I hated it then, and I hated it now. I was shocked and mortified, but luckily I had plenty of funds in my Reserve Credit Checking account to cover it. Once at the house, I called the bank and learned that when one makes a purchase deemed to be out of the spending pattern, the purchase is flagged and rejected for security reasons. I also learned to call ahead in the future if I had planned to do any more of this form of purchasing. Big lesson learned.

I bet you're wondering what all this has to do with Mayflies. Well, the night after shopping out WalMart and putting things away, the cocktails came out. I led the way down to the dock and noticed all these Dragonfly-looking bugs on the trees surrounding the path. I waved my arms and got swarmed with Mayflies. I just kept waving and shouting, "Y'all go on! This is mah hawse. Y'all get out!" in my best southern accent; all the way to the dock. When I turned around to encourage Mere and Joanne to do the same, they just stood there, mouths agape with hands over their drinks, just about peeing their pants. I yelled, "Close your mouth and run!" They ran to me after much cajoling, and we laughed all night.

I bet they don't want to come back because of bug trauma. What'd you think?