In some ways the spiders who share their room with me are the best roommates I’ve ever had. They never eat my food, keep me up late, or lose my clothes. Maybe that’s why I can’t kill them outright. I used to trap my spiders in cups and wait for them to wither away from starvation–a method my sister labeled “torture.” Torture? But I’m a pacifist! I immediately started vacuuming-up my eight-legged friends instead. What a perfect solution–no killing involved, only relocation from bedroom floor to vacuum bag. My family has now perfected the art of sleeping through nocturnal vacuuming sessions. I’ve convinced my dad that the momentary hum of the vacuum-cleaner, no matter how late, beats the alternatives. Especially when the alternatives consist of me screaming “dad!” over and over until he groggily stumbles down the stairs armed with toilet paper. My hope is that the spiders hiding in my room will witness the disappearance of their friends via the vacuum-cleaner. I know that some of these spider-witnesses will bravely stand up to the ills of mechanization and technology by following their fellow spiders into the vast unknown territory of the vacuum bag. But, perhaps some cowardly spiders, broken and ashamed, will make their way back to Spidersville where they will spread the word–stay out of Rachel’s room. But this hasn’t happened yet. So meanwhile I go on vacuuming. Yet, vacuuming, flawless as it may seem does have a drawback. I have started worrying about the frequency of the free “vacuum” vacations my arachnid-roommates take. After all, spiders are carnivores. In fact, they’re cannibals. And you, my intelligent reader, have undoubtedly anticipated the problem by now. That’s right, a giant vacuum-spider currently lives in the closet right outside my room. Everyday I feed this mutant with spider-vacationers who, by no fault of my own, now die as a result of their relocation. The vacuum-spider has grown to the size of the entire vacuum bag and will some day be strong enough to break free of its flimsy confines. I tremble when I imagine that day. Oh, but of course you don’t think I’m serious about all of this nonsense. Who would ever believe such a story? By the way...would you mind changing my vacuum bag?
So the short version is that I haven't been able to kill spiders without a vacuum until I married. And then I succumbed to that cliche of all cliches and had Josh do the spider killing.
However, motherhood has rendered me heroic in this aspect. I feel like a mama lion protecting her cub. All it takes is me imagining a sighted spider biting my babe, and I'm on it like lightning (lightning coated in half a roll of toilet paper).
Nevertheless, when, after nursing Zoë down to a much needed nap this morning, my slow rising was disrupted by this
darting out from under me, I froze. I froze and then whispered to Josh in a voice urgent enough to communicate dire harm befallen our daughter, or so he said, that he needed to come in the bedroom with toilet paper now.
You see, I was caught between by mother lion instinct and my keep-the-baby-asleep instinct.
It turns out neither one did much good. Josh's method was more severe than I had anticipated. But the spider never saw that DVD coming.
So that's why we sleep among hundreds of movies.
4 comments:
You could just take my approach and just leave them. most people with spider bites don't even remember getting them. they just itch for a little while. Of course you have to take care of the poisonous ones.
I laughed out loud reading this post mostly because I could have written it!! I too vacuum spiders 90% of the time, but as a mom now, I've actually had the guts to grab the toilet paper myself without calling Nate to get the job done. :)
That is so funny. I loved your little spider story. How old is that? I'm the same with spiders. I could almost always squash them, except the big ones, I usually run and grab some kind of cleaner and spray them, so when they are all shriveled up I can squash them. For some reason this post makes me miss you. It's kind of late, I hope this comment makes sense, I don't want to reread it, so sorry if it doesn't. :)
Lori--I think 11 years or old or so? Which makes my head spin. Cleaner, now that's an idea!
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