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if I haven't traumatized my kids before now, I definitely accomplished that today

We have a smelly hall cupboard.  The day we moved in we had a cleaning lady come and de-gross-ify the house, and that was one place I told her to take care of.  She was here for hours, working up a sweat, and I swear she didn't leave the house any cleaner.

So today, I decided it was time to stop ignoring the stench and deal with the smelly cupboard.  Because it's actually quite huge and we still have boxes of stuff that need to find a home.  Except that it's so huge that you don't realize what's in the back of it until you literally stick your head (and upper body) all the way in and look.

Which I did.

And then I had to stick my head back in with cleaners and a metal spatula so I could scrape a pile of nasty gooey sludge out of the back corner.

And I almost vomited.

It was touch and go for awhile.

But it's clean now, and covered in some lovely cream colored sticky-shelf-paper.  And it smells better.  It's not completely un-smelly, but less smelly, and useable.

So then I enlisted my kids help in moving a box full of board games out of the basement storage so I could put them in the cupboard.  And just as we finished the board game retrieval, and the world was looking fluffy and rainbow colored, horror of all horrors struck.

Have I ever mentioned my extreme dislike of bugs and spiders?  Because I hate them.

Sometimes after I've found a bug in the house I can't kneel next to the bed to pray for like 2 weeks, because all I can think of are possible bugs that are possibly down there (Heavenly Father has gotten used to my kneeling ON the bed to pray - they are perfectly reverent prayers, I assure you, and completely bug free).

I've seen arachnaphobia too many times and even though I wouldn't say that I'm deathly afraid of spiders, I would say that I'm mostly deathly afraid of spiders.  So when I saw THE ENORMOUS SPIDER THAT LOOKED LIKE A BROWN RECLUSE sitting on my husband's upturned bass drum in our basement, I freaked out.

Major freaking out occurred.

At first I was completely paralyzed, because HELLO, ginormous poisonous spider!!!  And then I realized I was the only adult in the house and it was my duty to kill it or it would bite my children thusly murdering them in their sleep.  But the thought of getting my hand close enough to smash it with a shoe or a stick or a sledge hammer was just way too much for me to handle.  I mean really - HAVE YOU SEEN ARACHNAPHOBIA?!  (Although I might have attempted the sledge hammer - had there been one handy.  Note to self: buy sledge hammer.)

So I did the only thing I could think of, and I screamed for my 8 year old to bring me the Tilex.  (If it's one thing that I've learned in this house of grunge is that Tilex will kill pretty much anything.)

But Two Bits was taking too long getting the Tilex, minutes and minutes even, and the spider kept MOVING.  Like, walking a little, and stuff.  Did I say horror of horrors yet?  Because, yeah, the terror was mounting.  Then over flowing.  And then I found myself standing in my basement, staring at a spider, screaming, "TILEX, HURRY, AAAAAAAH!!"

It wasn't even like regular yelling screaming, like, "Yo, bring me the tilex", nope it was more like straight up horror movie screaming.

AND THEN.

When I finally had the Tilex in hand, I sprayed the spider like my life depended on it (which it probably did) and IT WOULDN'T DIE.  So I sprayed until there was a puddle forming on the drum head, and once the spider slowed down a little, and it's back legs stopped working but it still wasn't dead I knew I'd have to smash it.  So then I was screaming, "SHOE!!  GET ME A SHOE!!! AAAAAAAAAAH!!"

And then I smashed it about 50 times and ran away.


And I called Husband and told him to come home from work RIGHT NOW and clean it up or his drum was a goner with all that Tilex and spider guts on it.  Which he did.  And I got multiple lectures on the proper way to kill a spider (whatever, I thought the Tilex was a great idea).


But now I hope my kids won't be murdered in their sleep by poinsonous spiders.

EXCEPT now I keep thinking about the other spiders wanting to enact revenge upon me and that thought really makes me want to run from the house while horror-movie-style screaming.

Comments

Rachel Sue said…
Um, yeah. This is me. Only I have the benefit of my daughter who likes to clean up dead spiders. Which is great becasue I have this thing where I'm terrified that the spider is only pretending to be dead and it will come alive and bite me.
Kristina P. said…
This is exactly like me! And by me, I mean my husband. Spiders don't freak me out too terribly, but he HATES them.
YOu would definitely do well in Samoa. WE have disgustingly long wriggly black centipedes ( some as long as your arm) that BITE and it reeeeaaallly hurts. I even go so far as to put the legs of the bed into cans of water to stop them from ever crawling on me in my sleep. (they cant swim....i think)
I now live in New Zealand. And havent seen a single centipede. So im happier.
Paige Kellerman said…
So not weird at all. Whenever I see a spider, I'm paralyzed with fear. However, I too share the fear that the eight-legged ones will sneak upstairs and kill my children. That singular fear motivates me while I swing my flip flop. I hate spiders so much, I wrote a personalized letter to them, on my blog.

http://www.paigekellerman.com/2011/06/letter-to-spiders-death-be-not-proud.html

Keep up the excellent posting!

Paige
Wonder Woman said…
I have SO killed big bugs with cleaning spray before. Very effective.

This post cracked me up. You seriously have got great voice.
Not sure this will help or not but we used to get these gnarly brown spiders all the time when I lived in Lindon that I was sure where brown recluses. Turns out, though, that brown recluses are really rare and the spider is some fiddler spider or something that looks gnarly but is harmless.

For what it's worth.

Also, there's the stuff I used to have when I worked retail where you'd spray it on gum to harden it and then it would chip right out of the carpet. Worked like a charm on spiders too. It's like the freeze and then shatter. No guts = cool.
Heather Hudson said…
HILARIOUS! Reminded me of the story my mom told me about when my older brother was mere two years old and they were outside together and she saw a snake, and in her fear of snakes, she knocked down her toddler running away and left him there to die with the snake!! "You went back for him, right?" I asked her. "No, but he eventually made it back to the house." True story :)
Jessica Newby said…
Another one! Ahhhh!!!
Jennifer said…
All I have to say is LOX PEST CONTROL!!! They're in Centerville and they saved my life. When I first moved into this place it was like a shelter for lost and homeless spiders. I was outside weeping the massive bug carnage (and Live-age) off my front porch when some kid walked up to me and handed out a flyer that said I had deadly spiders in my house. Bout passed out right there. That was the last straw. We didn't go with whatever that company was because of their scare tactics... but I haven't regretted once the money we spent and am thankful every day for Lox!
Jennifer said…
that was supposed to say SWEEPING... I was weeping too!

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