To the body count, I can now add 3 spiders. I am not talking about measly little daddy long legs, I’m talking about giant spiders. With fangs. And spiky legs. I’m getting itchy just writing this. Gross. I’m starting to think that I’m cursed or something. It all started… I don’t remember when, but in the past few months. I woke up for work, walked into the bathroom, past the bathtub and BAM! I was hit with a horrid sight.
Giant. Spider. In. Tub. I can kill bugs here and there without being too much of a girl (although once in high school I was freaking out about a moth in my room…my dad’s form of rescue was a simple, monotone “turn off your light, open your door and turn on the hall light.” Thanks for nothing, Dad) but my issue is reproduction. Bugs lay eggs. Eggs hatch. 1 bug just became 45, even if it’s just a moth.
Another issue with bugs and their eggs is that I have heard 1 too many horror stories about people stepping on a spider or squishing a spider that was carrying said eggs on its back. POP. A million tiny spiders running around, possibly on you. I just s.o.l.-ed (shivered out loud, but silently. It was an action). Disgusting. Now, when I see a spider, I hesitate smashing its guts out for fear of the egg sack, that I don’t even know really exists. But not smashing it means it can scurry into some dark corner to lay more eggs and make more spiders. Aagghh!
The first response to killing a bug is toilet paper, or some sort of napkin/paper towel variety. I killed a cricket once with TP (those little buggers are hard to find and when you finally do, they must die. It’s them and the chirping, or something valuable getting thrown at the wall). Killing it with TP required far too much force. It was thick and crunchy and its guts looked like chunky applesauce. I can’t handle the warmth or the moisture of the freshly dead bug that you can feel through the wad of paper. TP is too absorbent and fingers are not protected, computer paper doesn’t envelop the suspect enough to do damage, and my shoe would mean I have bug guts that I then track all over my house. The real problem is that when you spot a bug, the panicky feeling takes over and you are forced to grab anything within reach. (I refuse to resort to me shoe though. I would rather smash it with a soap dispenser or some other random object that I would then throw away, rather then use my shoe, which goes in my closet with my clothes, and walks on floors in my house that I eat off of, and walks through carpet that Banjo lays on).
Back to the spider in my tub. I’m not kidding, it was huge. Like a 2 inch leg span. My initial reaction to all spiders of any size or shape is that it is a brown recluse. I read about them being in Omaha a few summers ago and I am convinced one will find me, or Matt, or Gus (fine, or Walter). Spider in the tub was before Benji’s day so he was not on my mind but our skin shriveling off from a spider bite was. I saw the spider and had to act quickly. The worst thing that could happen in this type of situation would be to see the spider, go retrieve a killing device, and return to no more spider. Now that’s a situation. The possibilities of where it could have gone would be awful. Anyway, I had to act fast so as to not lose sight of the devil. I quickly evaluated the situation~ TP was not heavy duty enough for a job this size and shoes were out of the question, so I went with my preferred method, aerosol. I grabbed my hairspray (which has worked in the past – it glues the victim in its place) and smothered the crap out of the giant. This stunned him enough for me to go pillage for something stronger. Scrub N Bubbles. Boom. The spider appeared to shrivel and wasn’t moving.
At that point I patted myself on the back, and turned on the tub to ‘wash the spider out.’ That’s when it got ugly. The water swooshed the spider up the side of the tub, where it stuck, and resurrected. Are you kidding me? This was way too big to smash, even dead, let alone pissed off, sticky and smelling fresh. I repeated my spray attack, and ran to the other bathroom to get something with Clorox. Bleach 1 Spider 0. I was going to leave the body for Matt to clean up but having witnessed the first resurrection, I couldn’t take any chances. I had to shovel the thing onto a magazine and throw the whole lot away. Now that the spider was gone, I was left to deal with the thoughts of the spider being near me while I had been sleeping. I convinced myself since it was in the tub, it had crawled up the drain and therefore, had just entered our house (no time to lay eggs or bite us). Its only one spider, its only one spider, its only one spider. Thank God I have the attention span of a kid at Tilt. I soon forgot the 8-legged terror and moved on with my life.
Then, Itsy Bitsy’s BFF came seeking revenge. Groggy and dazed, I rolled out of bed a couple of weeks later, strolled into my closet and hit the lights.
Another issue with bugs and their eggs is that I have heard 1 too many horror stories about people stepping on a spider or squishing a spider that was carrying said eggs on its back. POP. A million tiny spiders running around, possibly on you. I just s.o.l.-ed (shivered out loud, but silently. It was an action). Disgusting. Now, when I see a spider, I hesitate smashing its guts out for fear of the egg sack, that I don’t even know really exists. But not smashing it means it can scurry into some dark corner to lay more eggs and make more spiders. Aagghh!
The first response to killing a bug is toilet paper, or some sort of napkin/paper towel variety. I killed a cricket once with TP (those little buggers are hard to find and when you finally do, they must die. It’s them and the chirping, or something valuable getting thrown at the wall). Killing it with TP required far too much force. It was thick and crunchy and its guts looked like chunky applesauce. I can’t handle the warmth or the moisture of the freshly dead bug that you can feel through the wad of paper. TP is too absorbent and fingers are not protected, computer paper doesn’t envelop the suspect enough to do damage, and my shoe would mean I have bug guts that I then track all over my house. The real problem is that when you spot a bug, the panicky feeling takes over and you are forced to grab anything within reach. (I refuse to resort to me shoe though. I would rather smash it with a soap dispenser or some other random object that I would then throw away, rather then use my shoe, which goes in my closet with my clothes, and walks on floors in my house that I eat off of, and walks through carpet that Banjo lays on).
Back to the spider in my tub. I’m not kidding, it was huge. Like a 2 inch leg span. My initial reaction to all spiders of any size or shape is that it is a brown recluse. I read about them being in Omaha a few summers ago and I am convinced one will find me, or Matt, or Gus (fine, or Walter). Spider in the tub was before Benji’s day so he was not on my mind but our skin shriveling off from a spider bite was. I saw the spider and had to act quickly. The worst thing that could happen in this type of situation would be to see the spider, go retrieve a killing device, and return to no more spider. Now that’s a situation. The possibilities of where it could have gone would be awful. Anyway, I had to act fast so as to not lose sight of the devil. I quickly evaluated the situation~ TP was not heavy duty enough for a job this size and shoes were out of the question, so I went with my preferred method, aerosol. I grabbed my hairspray (which has worked in the past – it glues the victim in its place) and smothered the crap out of the giant. This stunned him enough for me to go pillage for something stronger. Scrub N Bubbles. Boom. The spider appeared to shrivel and wasn’t moving.
At that point I patted myself on the back, and turned on the tub to ‘wash the spider out.’ That’s when it got ugly. The water swooshed the spider up the side of the tub, where it stuck, and resurrected. Are you kidding me? This was way too big to smash, even dead, let alone pissed off, sticky and smelling fresh. I repeated my spray attack, and ran to the other bathroom to get something with Clorox. Bleach 1 Spider 0. I was going to leave the body for Matt to clean up but having witnessed the first resurrection, I couldn’t take any chances. I had to shovel the thing onto a magazine and throw the whole lot away. Now that the spider was gone, I was left to deal with the thoughts of the spider being near me while I had been sleeping. I convinced myself since it was in the tub, it had crawled up the drain and therefore, had just entered our house (no time to lay eggs or bite us). Its only one spider, its only one spider, its only one spider. Thank God I have the attention span of a kid at Tilt. I soon forgot the 8-legged terror and moved on with my life.
Then, Itsy Bitsy’s BFF came seeking revenge. Groggy and dazed, I rolled out of bed a couple of weeks later, strolled into my closet and hit the lights.
A little hard to focus on anything.
Tell me this is a nightmare.
Are you kidding me?!? Another one? HUGE? In my closet?!?
Thank God I saw this one, I don’t even know how I did back in that corner. But it was big, and thick and black (TWSS) and again I just got the heebie jeebies typing this. The panic set in and I had to act. This sucker couldn’t stay with my clothes! I kept envisioning putting on a shoe and spiders running out, or reaching onto a shelf and getting fangs in my fingers. FML. No time to wake Matt up, I couldn’t risk losing sight of this f-er. I knew I needed to remove the pig from the vicinity because there were way too many places for him to escape (um, my undies are in a basket next to him). I psyched myself up and on 3, I yanked piggy off of the shelf and into the middle of the floor. The spider scurried to the piggy ear and I patted myself on the back for saving my wardrobe, and keeping the spider in sight.
My initial thought was to resort to my bleach bottle, soak the piggy/spider to death, and throw them both away. That’s when the SOB took off. Hairspray paralyzer, check. Now for the tricky part, this guy was on carpet and I didn’t want to make a big bleach mark on the floor. With time running out and little else to grab, I was forced to go with the TP. Uggh, I cringe thinking about it. Luckily I had the plastic that the TP rolls come in so I held the wad through the plastic and spidey was toast. Force of the nubbins 1 Spider 0. My joy of victory lasted about 3 seconds until I started thinking about where the heck that one came from. No drains in the closet so I settled on it falling from the vent in the ceiling~ thankfully not 12 inches to the right into my panty pile.
Since the closeted spider came out, I’ve lived in a bug free bubble. Arachnid anxiety was replaced with baby love and I didn’t think twice about bugs or critters (ha! Emily has a funny critter story with some ground squirrels) until last night. Sometimes when I’m getting ready, I lay out a blanket on the bathroom floor (our bathroom is carpeted so its okay to have a baby there and I know carpet in bathrooms is gross~ it came with the house and its at the top on the ‘renovate’ list). Anyway, one of the blankets had been ‘put away’ (tossed in a pile off to the side) for a few days and last night, a little something caught my eye. Son of a….
Thank God I saw this one, I don’t even know how I did back in that corner. But it was big, and thick and black (TWSS) and again I just got the heebie jeebies typing this. The panic set in and I had to act. This sucker couldn’t stay with my clothes! I kept envisioning putting on a shoe and spiders running out, or reaching onto a shelf and getting fangs in my fingers. FML. No time to wake Matt up, I couldn’t risk losing sight of this f-er. I knew I needed to remove the pig from the vicinity because there were way too many places for him to escape (um, my undies are in a basket next to him). I psyched myself up and on 3, I yanked piggy off of the shelf and into the middle of the floor. The spider scurried to the piggy ear and I patted myself on the back for saving my wardrobe, and keeping the spider in sight.
My initial thought was to resort to my bleach bottle, soak the piggy/spider to death, and throw them both away. That’s when the SOB took off. Hairspray paralyzer, check. Now for the tricky part, this guy was on carpet and I didn’t want to make a big bleach mark on the floor. With time running out and little else to grab, I was forced to go with the TP. Uggh, I cringe thinking about it. Luckily I had the plastic that the TP rolls come in so I held the wad through the plastic and spidey was toast. Force of the nubbins 1 Spider 0. My joy of victory lasted about 3 seconds until I started thinking about where the heck that one came from. No drains in the closet so I settled on it falling from the vent in the ceiling~ thankfully not 12 inches to the right into my panty pile.
Since the closeted spider came out, I’ve lived in a bug free bubble. Arachnid anxiety was replaced with baby love and I didn’t think twice about bugs or critters (ha! Emily has a funny critter story with some ground squirrels) until last night. Sometimes when I’m getting ready, I lay out a blanket on the bathroom floor (our bathroom is carpeted so its okay to have a baby there and I know carpet in bathrooms is gross~ it came with the house and its at the top on the ‘renovate’ list). Anyway, one of the blankets had been ‘put away’ (tossed in a pile off to the side) for a few days and last night, a little something caught my eye. Son of a….
I have to admit, this spider was the smallest of the 3 I’ve seen (like ¼ of the size) BUT it was also the brownest. Remember my knowledge of the recluse? Again, I was forced into action for fear of losing sight of the stupid thing. Not wanting to poison my baby’s stuff with my aerosol attack (my all natural melaleuca products are on order), I went with the shake and squeeze. Shake the blanket, squeeze the spider with TP (the smaller the spider, the less chance of goo or anything else soaking through my 500 TP squares). The whole incident was over and done in a flash but unfortunately, I was left to my own wild imagination and fears. We’ve thrown a baby into the mix and all I could picture was Benji confined to the bars of his crib prison, covered in spiders. Sound asleep, like a perfect little angel, with spiders coming freely in and out of his nose, mouth and ear orifices.
Stupid spiders. I have tried to convince myself that they are the kind that eat the other bugs, you know, the kind you want in your house? But its doubtful. In almost a year in our house, I have seen 3 spiders, all within like 100 sq. ft, all within close proximity to where we sleep, all when I’m alone and forced to deal on my own. Matt leaves in a few weeks and I don’t even want to know what critters I’ll be dealing with then. With my track record, it’ll be like the ‘Hangover’ and I’ll wake up to a tiger in my bathroom. Lord, help us all.
I think I deserve some gifts to myself to make life easier while he’s gone (to compensate for any other crap I’ll have to deal with). 1. A regular exterminator visit (a preventative measure) 2. A landscaper to clear our lawn of debris and stray wood piles where recluses dwell (save the puppies, plus I don't know how to mow) and 3. A cleaning lady (hey why not). The military should give me these things while Matt’s gone since essentially I’m asking for a highly productive version of my husband that they’re sending away. Hey, a girl can dream, right? Anything to get my mind off of all of the horrible creepy crawlies lurking in the shadows of my house, just waiting for Matt to leave.
I think I deserve some gifts to myself to make life easier while he’s gone (to compensate for any other crap I’ll have to deal with). 1. A regular exterminator visit (a preventative measure) 2. A landscaper to clear our lawn of debris and stray wood piles where recluses dwell (save the puppies, plus I don't know how to mow) and 3. A cleaning lady (hey why not). The military should give me these things while Matt’s gone since essentially I’m asking for a highly productive version of my husband that they’re sending away. Hey, a girl can dream, right? Anything to get my mind off of all of the horrible creepy crawlies lurking in the shadows of my house, just waiting for Matt to leave.
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