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There is a story I must tell before I lose too much accuracy of the events and instead end up telling some sort of over-dramatic, beefed up, epic story involving much conflicting narcassistic tendencies and cynical self-abuse. God knows I would just die if I were caught behaving in such a way. So here it is.
Approximately 2 days ago (approximately because “reality” tv shows have reduced my short term memory to about 5 minutes, none of which are consecutive) I had spent a hard evening’s work of reprimanding myself for not studying in lieu of actually doing it when I was presented with a difficult journey of self discovery, of setbacks and triumphs, of trials and tribulations, of momentous opportunities to act like a 6 year old girl. This began as an ordinary day, a day like any other, a day of quiet reflection of the reasons why I’m sure that my study material will somehow seep into my brain through osmosis from across the room while I play Morrowind. Little did I know that my evening would turn into a frantic ordeal of possible death, dismemberment and general ickyness.
So there I was at about 2:30 am, getting a bit tired, starting to consider going to bed and I realized that since I had gotten up at 7am that morning for an early class and had spent the entire day sitting, doing nothing, with the heat cranked up in my room to avoid the unseemly cold, mutant Ottawa weather, I wanted a shower before hitting the hay. This was not an unusual thing for me to do as I frequently take more than one shower a day because I think that if I do, I will make up for all the people who sit next to me on the bus who obviously, to put this politely, don't. Ever. This is my little part to help balance out the universe. However, having a shower at this time of night is not a habitual thing which made me even more glad that I did decide to, otherwise I would never have noticed the blood sucking mutant demon-thing that preys on small children and puppies.
Well, ok, it was just a spider, but a relatively big spider. More importantly it was in my room, on my wall in the corner behind the door where I hang my towel so that when the door is open, the towel is snuggled right up against where it was sitting. My God… the implications of that had me shaking the towel out so frantically that the towel molecules were starting to rip apart. If I had an ornate concrete block I’m sure I would have burned it in effigy to the God of Bug-Spray.
My biggest spider-related near death experience happened when I was 15, staying over at a friend’s place when I had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. After doing my business, I turned to go out the door when I noticed a spider sitting directly in front of the door on the floor blocking my only escape route (there were no windows I could fling myself through in this particular bathroom, a serious oversight on the designer's part of not including an emergency spider-intrusion escape hatch). And this was no mortal spider. This was Arachnor, Evil Overlord of Spiders. This was a spider that I was sure built its webs on highways beneath overpasses and sucked the motor oil from Buicks. I won’t go into a lot of details regarding this one, as it is not our story, but suffice to say I lived through it after bashing it with a broom handle so hard that I almost put a hole in the floor. The sound was the worst. I can still hear the crunching resonating in my brain and every time I do I think I die a little inside.
If you can’t tell, I’m slightly arachnophobic (and if you really can't, seek help). Don’t get me wrong, I recognize the need for spiders in keeping the general insect population in check, but I try to keep that population in my room relatively low so there was NO NEED for the spider’s services in that particular location. This was a violation of my privacy and home. Unfortunately the United Nations advisor for the Human Rights Commission will no longer return my calls (not that he ever did… like he has something more important to do... I can’t stand snobs) and refuses to do something about this crisis. So I was on my own.
Anyway, as I was saying, I’m all for spiders in their natural home which is, by definition, “anywhere that’s not near me”. But since this spider had somehow traveled up six flights of stairs, around several corners and down hallways, all of which is like five THOUSAND spider-kilometers, and just CONVENIENTLY ended up in MY ROOM next to MY TOWEL, this spider obviously had purpose and intent. This was a clear-cut case of malicious Spiderousness and first degree Yuckyness. Now the punishment: Probation? No. Incarceration? (Like what? A shoebox?) No. Civil Service? No. There was only one recourse. I had to send a message to all further creatures who would dare violate my sanctuary with wanton disregard for my bathing apparel and tell them that it would not be tolerated.
The spider must die.
Texas would be proud.
Now the question becomes: how do I do this? I want to make it quick, because even though I dislike him thoroughly, I still don’t want him to suffer despite his disgustingness (the same does not apply to Roseanne Barr). Of course, most actions that I can think of involve coming within 10 feet of him. Half of me is saying “Ok, you spent four years in the army as a military police officer, policing trained killers, work security, are a 6 foot 3, 220 lb male… you can handle a spider” and the other half of me is saying “AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE” in the most clear and accurate rendition of every short skirt-sporting jezebel in every B-rated horror movie ever made. If I had one I would have used a shotgun and blown him and all his grossness through the wall and showered the roommates on the other side with bits of plaster and legs. Alas, all I had was Kleenex.
So I wadded up approximately 30,000 feet of Kleenex and descended upon him with the same ferocity and determination that can be summed up only in one word: “ick!”
There I was, at arms length, trying to reach the nasty little beast while keeping my head, shoulders and upper torso as far away as possible while also realizing that, should I miss, he would fall onto my feet and/or legs and therefore I was also keeping them far away from the ghastly evil being as well. The result was me, arching in a way that suggested flexibility that I in no way possess, as if I were participating in some sort of gravity-defying interpretive dance, one arm stretched out grasping a giant wad of Kleenex. What this dance might have been interpreting with so much Kleenex I will leave to the more sick-minded of us to reason.
Then when I was close enough to feel his little breath and see his 10 zillion eyes glaring up at me in a terrifying, murderous madness, his spider-sense kicked in and he responded. Being this close to a spider was gross enough for me already as I could see far more than I wanted. He was light brown, ugly and my god, ew, hairy. I mean this thing was hairy. This was the Robin Williams of spiders. I think he had more than the federally approved amount of legs too. He probably put on extras before he left the house just to freak me out more and ohmigod is he moving? He’s moving! He’s moving, he's****ingmoving nonono, I gotta get him, the little bastard is running away and… WHAM! I slammed the Kleenex wad down on his hairy little body and held it there, frantically searching the floor for any sign that he might have dropped out in which case my only hope would be a lightning bolt from the Heavens to strike him down. If nothing of the sort happened and I lost him, my only recourse would be to move somewhere where spiders do not inhabit, such as the Arctic, where the worst thing I have to deal with are polar bears (Which, granted, are the most aggressive bears on earth, but at least they have a reasonable amount of legs.) Thankfully, I saw none (spiders, not polar bears... well... no polar bears either), which left me only the task of confirming that he was now in the Kleenex. How the hell was I supposed to do this? Clearly the easiest way to get this accomplished was to check in the toilet bowl where I was intending on depositing him, but I had to get him off the wall first. Verdict? A dead spider is better than a live one, even if he is in more pieces. Methodology? PUSH! So, despite the fact that he was probably already dead from the three thousand pounds of pressure I slammed into him from the initial blow, I squished down more just to be certain. Then, with both hands, I pushed the top and bottom parts of the wad in and grabbed whatever may be inside and ran to the bathroom with the same energy I usually reserve for fleeing burning chemical factories and tossed the Kleenex into the bowl in a manner so that I could see what I hoped would be the squished-beyond-recognition remains of a Demon Bug from the 9th Circle of Hell ™.
Of course you all know what happened.
That’s right… the monster rose from the grave and perched on top of the floating wad of Kleenex. I could see a smug look of self-satisfaction on every one of his billion little eyeballs and I swear I could hear the high-resonance pitched sound of maniacal cackling. The little ****er was still alive. Defeated, anguished, and poised on the brink of losing all hope, a small realization lit its pilot light in my brain. And as that flame rose and rose I could feel a grin spread across my face as I slowly reached out and… hit the flusher. I rejoiced at the prevailing victory of the forces of light (me) over this devil spawn as he shook about 12 tiny fists at me and was swallowed by the mighty, the righteous, Porcelain God.
Approximately 2 days ago (approximately because “reality” tv shows have reduced my short term memory to about 5 minutes, none of which are consecutive) I had spent a hard evening’s work of reprimanding myself for not studying in lieu of actually doing it when I was presented with a difficult journey of self discovery, of setbacks and triumphs, of trials and tribulations, of momentous opportunities to act like a 6 year old girl. This began as an ordinary day, a day like any other, a day of quiet reflection of the reasons why I’m sure that my study material will somehow seep into my brain through osmosis from across the room while I play Morrowind. Little did I know that my evening would turn into a frantic ordeal of possible death, dismemberment and general ickyness.
So there I was at about 2:30 am, getting a bit tired, starting to consider going to bed and I realized that since I had gotten up at 7am that morning for an early class and had spent the entire day sitting, doing nothing, with the heat cranked up in my room to avoid the unseemly cold, mutant Ottawa weather, I wanted a shower before hitting the hay. This was not an unusual thing for me to do as I frequently take more than one shower a day because I think that if I do, I will make up for all the people who sit next to me on the bus who obviously, to put this politely, don't. Ever. This is my little part to help balance out the universe. However, having a shower at this time of night is not a habitual thing which made me even more glad that I did decide to, otherwise I would never have noticed the blood sucking mutant demon-thing that preys on small children and puppies.
Well, ok, it was just a spider, but a relatively big spider. More importantly it was in my room, on my wall in the corner behind the door where I hang my towel so that when the door is open, the towel is snuggled right up against where it was sitting. My God… the implications of that had me shaking the towel out so frantically that the towel molecules were starting to rip apart. If I had an ornate concrete block I’m sure I would have burned it in effigy to the God of Bug-Spray.
My biggest spider-related near death experience happened when I was 15, staying over at a friend’s place when I had gotten up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. After doing my business, I turned to go out the door when I noticed a spider sitting directly in front of the door on the floor blocking my only escape route (there were no windows I could fling myself through in this particular bathroom, a serious oversight on the designer's part of not including an emergency spider-intrusion escape hatch). And this was no mortal spider. This was Arachnor, Evil Overlord of Spiders. This was a spider that I was sure built its webs on highways beneath overpasses and sucked the motor oil from Buicks. I won’t go into a lot of details regarding this one, as it is not our story, but suffice to say I lived through it after bashing it with a broom handle so hard that I almost put a hole in the floor. The sound was the worst. I can still hear the crunching resonating in my brain and every time I do I think I die a little inside.
If you can’t tell, I’m slightly arachnophobic (and if you really can't, seek help). Don’t get me wrong, I recognize the need for spiders in keeping the general insect population in check, but I try to keep that population in my room relatively low so there was NO NEED for the spider’s services in that particular location. This was a violation of my privacy and home. Unfortunately the United Nations advisor for the Human Rights Commission will no longer return my calls (not that he ever did… like he has something more important to do... I can’t stand snobs) and refuses to do something about this crisis. So I was on my own.
Anyway, as I was saying, I’m all for spiders in their natural home which is, by definition, “anywhere that’s not near me”. But since this spider had somehow traveled up six flights of stairs, around several corners and down hallways, all of which is like five THOUSAND spider-kilometers, and just CONVENIENTLY ended up in MY ROOM next to MY TOWEL, this spider obviously had purpose and intent. This was a clear-cut case of malicious Spiderousness and first degree Yuckyness. Now the punishment: Probation? No. Incarceration? (Like what? A shoebox?) No. Civil Service? No. There was only one recourse. I had to send a message to all further creatures who would dare violate my sanctuary with wanton disregard for my bathing apparel and tell them that it would not be tolerated.
The spider must die.
Texas would be proud.
Now the question becomes: how do I do this? I want to make it quick, because even though I dislike him thoroughly, I still don’t want him to suffer despite his disgustingness (the same does not apply to Roseanne Barr). Of course, most actions that I can think of involve coming within 10 feet of him. Half of me is saying “Ok, you spent four years in the army as a military police officer, policing trained killers, work security, are a 6 foot 3, 220 lb male… you can handle a spider” and the other half of me is saying “AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE” in the most clear and accurate rendition of every short skirt-sporting jezebel in every B-rated horror movie ever made. If I had one I would have used a shotgun and blown him and all his grossness through the wall and showered the roommates on the other side with bits of plaster and legs. Alas, all I had was Kleenex.
So I wadded up approximately 30,000 feet of Kleenex and descended upon him with the same ferocity and determination that can be summed up only in one word: “ick!”
There I was, at arms length, trying to reach the nasty little beast while keeping my head, shoulders and upper torso as far away as possible while also realizing that, should I miss, he would fall onto my feet and/or legs and therefore I was also keeping them far away from the ghastly evil being as well. The result was me, arching in a way that suggested flexibility that I in no way possess, as if I were participating in some sort of gravity-defying interpretive dance, one arm stretched out grasping a giant wad of Kleenex. What this dance might have been interpreting with so much Kleenex I will leave to the more sick-minded of us to reason.
Then when I was close enough to feel his little breath and see his 10 zillion eyes glaring up at me in a terrifying, murderous madness, his spider-sense kicked in and he responded. Being this close to a spider was gross enough for me already as I could see far more than I wanted. He was light brown, ugly and my god, ew, hairy. I mean this thing was hairy. This was the Robin Williams of spiders. I think he had more than the federally approved amount of legs too. He probably put on extras before he left the house just to freak me out more and ohmigod is he moving? He’s moving! He’s moving, he's****ingmoving nonono, I gotta get him, the little bastard is running away and… WHAM! I slammed the Kleenex wad down on his hairy little body and held it there, frantically searching the floor for any sign that he might have dropped out in which case my only hope would be a lightning bolt from the Heavens to strike him down. If nothing of the sort happened and I lost him, my only recourse would be to move somewhere where spiders do not inhabit, such as the Arctic, where the worst thing I have to deal with are polar bears (Which, granted, are the most aggressive bears on earth, but at least they have a reasonable amount of legs.) Thankfully, I saw none (spiders, not polar bears... well... no polar bears either), which left me only the task of confirming that he was now in the Kleenex. How the hell was I supposed to do this? Clearly the easiest way to get this accomplished was to check in the toilet bowl where I was intending on depositing him, but I had to get him off the wall first. Verdict? A dead spider is better than a live one, even if he is in more pieces. Methodology? PUSH! So, despite the fact that he was probably already dead from the three thousand pounds of pressure I slammed into him from the initial blow, I squished down more just to be certain. Then, with both hands, I pushed the top and bottom parts of the wad in and grabbed whatever may be inside and ran to the bathroom with the same energy I usually reserve for fleeing burning chemical factories and tossed the Kleenex into the bowl in a manner so that I could see what I hoped would be the squished-beyond-recognition remains of a Demon Bug from the 9th Circle of Hell ™.
Of course you all know what happened.
That’s right… the monster rose from the grave and perched on top of the floating wad of Kleenex. I could see a smug look of self-satisfaction on every one of his billion little eyeballs and I swear I could hear the high-resonance pitched sound of maniacal cackling. The little ****er was still alive. Defeated, anguished, and poised on the brink of losing all hope, a small realization lit its pilot light in my brain. And as that flame rose and rose I could feel a grin spread across my face as I slowly reached out and… hit the flusher. I rejoiced at the prevailing victory of the forces of light (me) over this devil spawn as he shook about 12 tiny fists at me and was swallowed by the mighty, the righteous, Porcelain God.
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