Needed: A case of Raid. And a new car.

I killed a spider yesterday. 

This is notable. Me + Spider killing is often notable.  Things usually go wrong.

As an example, during the years that Krumpet and I lived together (Krumpet being my co-bff.   I LURVE her in a way completely opposite from the way I LURVE spiders which is to say, NO LOVE for spiders and LOTS o' love for the Krumpet.)

As I was saying!  During the years that Krumpet and I were roomies, there did, upon occasion, arise the need to kill the odd spider or two.  (The phrase "odd spider" is oddly disturbing.  I mean, spiders are creepy enough on their own, do we really need to add oddities to the mix???) 

Whenever a spider sighting occurred, we would try to have our other roommate, Charlie Brown, deal with it.  But he wasn't always around.  Seems he had this thing.  Called a job.  And he actually felt compelled to do it.  Sometimes.

So our second favorite weapon was the Feline Army.  There were four.  Ziggy, our primary experimental cat.  Molly, the secondary experimental cat.  Bob, the tertiary experimental cat.  And Izzy, who was basically useless.  Although if we could have figured out the next word in the "primary, secondary, tertiary…" sequence, I'm sure we would have found a purpose for him.

Back to the spider.  It was a large spider.  It was up by the ceiling.  Atop the vertical blinds.  It was being…..spidery.  And up to no good.

Normally, the cat known as Bob would have been up there.  (As opposed to the spider known as Bob who will most likely make an appearance a few paragraphs from now)  Bob's favorite place to perch was atop the vertical blinds.  I do not know what she was doing on this particular day but clearly she also was up to no good, most likely trying to lead the others in a Feline Rebellion.  At any rate, there were no cat soldiers to be found.

So, we resorted to our THIRD line of defense.   The can of Raid (RAID!)  Except….this was the day the Raid failed us.

We sprayed it.  Have you ever sprayed Raid (rhyming!) in an UP direction?  Do you know that what goes up, must come down?  Have you ever gotten a facefull of Raid?  Is "facefull" a real word?  Should I be "faceful"?  "Face-full"?  I just don't know.

My point is!  Raid to the face is not good.  Whilst ducking the raining Raid, we lost sight of the horrible evil mutant spider. 

We looked up.  We looked down.  We did the hokey pokey and we spun ourselves around.  Finally, we looked behind the vertical blinds, hoping to see a withered up old spider corpse.

BUT NO!!!  IT WAS STILL ALIVE!  Very much so.

And it was PISSED.

AAAAAAIIIIIIEEEEEEE!!!

It charged us.  Its monstrous spidery legs skittered across the linoleum as it headed for us at top speed.

We did the only thing we could do.

We threw a bottle at it.

The bottle hit the spider, the spider flew up in the air, landed on the vertical blinds and it clung there, glaring at us with spidery hate in its spidery eyes.

And it all came clear to us. 

This was no ordinary spider.  This spider…..was a descendant…..of BOB. The Ocean Spider.  The Cape Fear Spider.  The Spider Like No Other.  DUM DUM DUM!!!!

Bob is an example of what happens when you don't kill a spider.  If you merely wound it, it will come back and haunt you.  It will live through a hurricane, biding it's time, nursing its two broken legs, broken by a flyswatter vengefully wielded by Krumpet's father (henceforth to be known as King Krumpet), wielded at the request of Krumpet and yours truly, Miss Marie herself.  It will WAIT.  For the day two young, innocent girls return to Ocean City, site of the Flyswatter Ambush.  And on that day of return, it will cling to the underside of their car as they return to their hometown and then it will amass an army of its own.  Fear Bob.  FEAR HIM.

We did the only thing we could do.  Screamed, fled the house and went out for margaritas.  (Okay, I had the margaritas as Krumpet is not a drinker…..I drank hers.  It was good). 

I do not know what ever happened to this particular soldier of Bob's.  Charlie Brown might have gotten him.  Or the cats.  Bottom line, when it comes to spider killing, this one was a huge fail.

So let's move forward a few years, shall we?  (And NO, we are not discussing exactly how many years that might be, suffice to say it's A LOT and NO, I'm not dead yet!)  I no longer kill bugs.  I decided a few years ago (more than five, less than ten, I can't remember exactly) that it is not up to me to make life or death decisions for any other living creature.  Even if said living creature is a creepy crawly icky SPIDER.  (This goes back to my spiritual beliefs which I will not discuss except to say we're all God's children, dont'cha know). 

Now, this doesn't mean that I will not seek other means to annihilate the creepy crawly ickies that sometimes cross my path.  For example, if I happen to be coming home from work one night and I happen to have scooped up Primary Cat Gracie as soon as I walk in the door (because she was trying to pack her tail and run away from home, such is her disgruntlement over the presence of the interloping boy cats) and I happen to switch on the hall light whilst holding Gracie and I happen to see a big black hopping insect, it does not violate my code of ethics to launch Gracie at said insect as if she were an ICBM, giving her a firm directive to KILL GRACIE KILL, this is not wrong, OKAY!  This is just nature doing what nature does.  Cats KILL bugs, it’s their job!

But about a month ago, I had to break my own law.  Because apparently, when I adopted the boys, I also adopted….fleas!  ::shudder::

I hate fleas.  I lived through a bad flea infestation once when I was a kid.  My parents' condo had 'em BAD.  We had to bomb.  It was ugly.  And unforgettable.

So I knew I had to take swift and decisive action.  I did struggle mightily with this decision but really?  It was me or them.  There was NO way I was going to live with fleas and since I had no plans to DISCONTINUE living…..well, you know.

So, one massive vet bill (Frontline is not cheap, y'all!), an afternoon of spraying the carpet and every inch of upholstery in the house (including all my stuffed animals….sorry Pookie Bear!), one asphyxiated Amy and one broken vacuum cleaner later, I had effectively committed mass genocide.

And I'm not sorry.

But see, apparently killing the fleas was a gateway drug to harder crimes.  Because yesterday, driving home from work, there was a spider.  Crawling across my windshield.  On the inside. 

So I smashed it.

But you know what this means?  It means Bob is back.  And I'm ready for him.

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2 comments:

Elizabeth said...
October 14, 2010 at 11:48 AM

Wow. Now that you figured out what was wrong and I can comment... I'm at a loss... I feel like I need some super awesome comment worthy of such a fuss on your facebook but... I've got nothing. So... hi... and I'm so glad you're blogging again!

Totally worth the fuss, no?

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