A Scary October Story

Don't read this post if you frighten easily...

Last week Jessica was visiting and as we stepped outside onto our front porch she screamed one of those screams of sheer terror that I, personally, reserve for snakes. I screamed too as I jumped back and grabbed her, which did nothing to allay her fear I might add.  I had to laugh when she pointed out what we were screaming about - a tiny chameleon on our railing.  Turns out that lizards -- really just miniature snakes with tiny feet when you think about it -- don't bother me at all.  Good to know.

Yesterday I decided to clean the basement and stuck the Swiffer behind my piano.  I captured a whole bunch of pill bugs in various stages of life and was so grossed out by this catch that I put my telescoping feather duster under there.  When I pulled it out again, a big, brown spider was attached to it.  A slender spider, it was easy to identify: brown recluse.  The very name sends shivers of horror up and down my spine!

Either of these events could have sent me -- a card carrying phobic -- over the edge, but together they multiplied my angst exponentially.  I had difficulty sleeping last night.  My entire body was tingling and I was certain that I was in the beginning stages of paralysis.

When I awoke this morning apparently perfectly fine - except emotionally, of course - no one was more surprised than I was.  Emotionally though, I'm a wreck!  Where there's one spider, there's a potential for many more, right? 

My kids had an audio of Charlotte's Web (read by the author) that we listened to endlessly while they were growing up.  You may recall that Charlotte gave birth to countless baby spiders by the tale's end.  Who knows the sex of the spider I threw outside yesterday?  I was in a panic but even if I hadn't been, truthfully I don't know how to tell a spider's gender anyway.  Chances are that even if I did, in the heat of the moment I wouldn't have had the presence of mind to check.

Today I'm going to buy an industrial can of Home Defense and have Jerry spray it this weekend.  I can't do it myself because insecticide creeps me out, but that would be belaboring the obvious now, wouldn't it?

Good News, Grace.

Good news, Grace!

The "water" that you slipped in that we thought was sewage actually was water!

I arrived at this conclusion with the help of the utility guys who came and dug up our entire side yard to replace the sewer pipe only to find that it wasn't broken. They said they didn't even know that a water pipe ran down the hill and would come "some other time" to fix it.

So maybe you'll want to come back and visit after all?