Yesterday I spent the afternoon with a good friend. Actually I was working with a good friend, which is always fun. She and her family are looking to move so we took a small road trip to look at a possible home.
Our trip took us high on a hill and the home itself was in a setting that I would describe as a bit forresty. There were a lot of trees, shrubs, ferns……there was no manicured lawn or maintained yard to speak of. The house itself had been vacant for quite some time and in that time some uninvited guests had made it their home. My friend and I ventured throughout the house and as we turned on the light of the downstairs bathroom she let out what can only be described as the “death scream”…..and then she did the dance that usually follows the death scream, which is to say that she began jumping up and down and yelling “KILL IT!!!!!!” I was so frightened by her reaction that I immediately screamed and didn’t know why until I looked directly into the sink and saw a spider.
Now I don’t understand this fear…..I don’t feel the same way about spiders, in fact I took off my snazzy brown and copper-colored pump and proceeded to smack the ever-living “S” out of the poor defenseless beast (may God rest it’s soul). My mission was accomplished however it was too late, the damage was done and my friend turned into a complete basket case for the next 10 minutes. EVERYTHING made her jump out of her skin, it was pretty funny. I about wet my pants when her son came around her from the back and she jumped out of her skin, it was awesome.
On the trip home my friend shared stories from her childhood about the time when her dad (who shares her same fear) shot a spider with a pistol, creating a crater in the ground the size of a dinner plate. When she told me the story of how she ran full force into a web, capturing the spider square on her face I told her that it was probably a good idea that her dad didn’t have his gun! Then she told me about the time that her husband was out of town and she found a spider in the bathtub….her brilliant plan was to cover the tub with Saran wrap, hoping to rob the spider of oxygen and thereby killing it….that’s awesome.
It can be paralyzing, I get that….I’m horribly afraid of snakes to the point of passing out. Fear or phobia, call it what you will. I’m working on getting over my fear of the garbage man. Glass recycling was today and once again I’m faced with setting my glass bottles (wine and liquor mostly) at the curb for all the neighborhood to judge. I want to put a note on it that says: “Dear Neighbor, I know what you’re thinking. I swear that I did not consume all of this myself. In fact, if you add up the bottles and divide that by the days that I have to hold them before the garbage man collects them, it’s really not that bad, right?” OR at least I could put a note on the box that says “Please note that we had two parties within the last 30 days”, although now that I think about it I’m not sure I need that reputation either!
So when all was said and done my friend asked me if I thought that the home that we looked at was going to have spider problems? So I went through my mental file: Home in the woods, yes. Home with basement, yes. Older home, yep. “Yes” I replied, “Chances are pretty good that you’ll see another spider however, there are companies that you can call that will spray the perimeter of your home and that will help a lot.” Then she wanted to know if there was a spray that she could wear and I said that the pesticides might kill her so no, that’s not a good option. Ah, Good times!
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The saran wrap concept to suffocate the poor thing is a crack up. What we won’t do to help get through our phobias! I used to have 1/2 ownership of “Buford” the house snake. He hung out all over the house and it was always a blast to watch him scare an unassuming guest. (I AM cynical, I guess!). Buford was very harmless but seemed to scare every guest we had. I miss the sucker…he was about 8 feet long and had a mischieveous personality.
Comment by pattiredd March 10, 2011 @ 5:25 am