September 26, 2006
September 18, 2006
Late night encounter
Sunday night I was pretty tired and ended up falling asleep on the couch. I woke up around 2am and kind of stumbled around some. After getting something to drink from the kitchen, I went back and sat down on the couch for a minute. I felt like I was kind of in a half-dream state and ended up just kind of doing the thousand-mile stare past my feet. Then I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye, so I rapidly turned to see what it was. A spider made its way to the middle of the floor and stopped. Perhaps it felt vibrations of my movement. Well, I recently finished the book, Anansi Boys, and while we stared at each other in the wee hours of the morning, I half expected this spider to start talking to me. We had crossed paths and I suspect the spider was planning its next course of action much as I was. Let me just say, that most of the time, I take friendly little bugs and scoop them up only to put them outside where they can go on their merry way. Spiders are different. When a spider makes their way into my domain, I take no prisoners. Ok, if I found a spider that was on the endangered list after someone pointed that out to me, I would attempt to save it.
Well, after a long minute, I grab a telephone book. Amazing how useful telephone books are for this sort of thing. I suspect the spider is going to make a mad dash to get under the nearest chair when I make my move. I keep my eye on it and instead of looking up the number for pest control, I leap over the coffee table and slam down this phone book onto the place where I saw the spider. For good measure I stand on the book. Nothing is worse than thinking you have squashed a bug and then have them come after you because you couldn't finish the job.
Ok, I figure the spider is DRT. I pick up the telephone book for conformation, and to my horror, I see something else besides the squashed spider carcus. What must have been dozens of baby spiders are now running around in mad confusion. I had killed the mother and now her baby spiders were out for revenge! They angry mob had started to spread out, so I put the telephone book back down hoping to contain them. Thankfully, they seemed content to stay under the safety of the book even though it had recently slain their mother.
I fumbled through the house looking for something that kills spiders. Nothing looked like it would work. Forumla 409? Liquid Plummer? Pledge? Nothing like Spidercide turned up so I settled for WD-40. I've been told it cures cancer, and now I just hoped it would cure an infestation. I let them have it and unleashed what was most likely a lethal dose for the heartiest of giant spiders. Thankfully, they ceased their movement and my homeland security threat level went from Severe to just Elevated. After clearing the dead and disposing of them, I attempted to go back to sleep.
Well, I got the willies. Suddenly, everything was a spider. Spider on my bed! No, wait, that's just a piece of lint. Spider just touched my toe! No, just a piece of thread. Well, let me say that the bogeyman has nothing on a herd of angry baby spiders. Hazy Bones on the other hand still has the top spot.
