Chapter 4: Caught Polkadots.

Today my timing was impeccable. I was as prompt as a nazi, from 10 am on. [I suppose I could've chosen a better simile there, but you get my point - for a man without a planner, calendar, or wrist watch, I was frighteningly on time for each of the days events.... lunch and shower].
At 5:29, the window at the base of the stairs was spotless (except for all the dirt and marinara spots) - not a ladybug in site. I craned my head around the corner, and by this time Lu had finished his Quantum physics research and was nosing around the corner below me. From the kitchen we would've resembled the Three Stooges (minus Rick Moranis). Clear! Sure enough, upon further inspection the kitchen walls and ceiling were spotless as well (except for the fur and peanut butter smears)... had we missed their exit? Had they adjusted their schedule? We searched the bathroom... the only ladybugs we could find were the two that perished in this morning's shower.

And just as I started to abandon my hopes of ever solving the riddle of my foul-weather friends, Lumas, doing the maximized bladder dance from somewhere in the living room, barked 3 times, paused and then barked 3 times again. I rushed out of the bathroom to find him aggressively sniffing a corner where my roommate's couch used to be. I nudged him out of the way to find what looked like 1/2 inch hole in my living room floor. There were no ladybugs near it, but I can assure you Lumas has seen many holes in his day, many of a wider, filthier diameter, and none of them put his britches in such a tizzy. Too dark to see in the hole, I set a lamp down by it, ran down into the basement (Lu of course forcing his way by me on the stairs) and searched the corner. In a few short seconds I found the lamp light pushing through the cobwebs. It was hard to get a good look because it was above a filthy old sink, but when I finally got up on the sink and shined my cel phone around the perimeter, I could see that it was a nice clean drilling, a man made hole, all the way through the floor! Before I could get down, Luisimo jumped up on the sink to get his own angle on things. And insodoing he rocked my cel phone right out of my hand and into the slimy sink.
When I recovered my balance and dismounted, I leaned into the sink to find a wonderous thing: illuminated by the dayglo yellow-green of my never-in-range Wackberry, the tail end of my Checkered army was making it's way down the drain.