Loud crickets and louder dogs need not apply...

photo from Orkin

For the past two days in a row Chester, Clyde, and Cletus Cricket have serenaded us half an hour before our alarm (at least they waited until seven in the morning instead of five A.M. today!), and when I went to escort Cletus to the door this morning (Or was it just Clyde returning after feeling he had failed to complete his assignment yesterday??), our upstairs new-neighbor-dog, Boaz, decided I was an axe-murderer and has spent the past quarter hour and the authorities that I am on [my own] premises. 
[nb: Boaz is as "protective" as Sally, but much more relentlessly, persistently annoying in what exits his throat]... 

photo from http://www.etsy.com/shop/geministudio?ref=si_shop - buy his stuff!! 

Needless to say, I could have walked up the stairs to ask him to cease and desist his clamoring and reassured him that I was, indeed, a murderer of the worst sort, but I chose to leave him in suspense and slink back into the apartment, allowing his imagination to run rampant, and his howly-barks to condemningly follow me back to my courtly oasis as I tried to be quiet so my husband could glean a few more needed minutes of slumber. 

I am almost afraid to go into the kitchen and make coffee, because opening the cupboard and refrigerator doors might stir up another dose of you-must-all-hear-her-sharpening-her-knives!




You mean to tell me I could have just set out some molasses?
*link discovered, but not made, by myself....