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?
1 comment:
I don't know why I never saw this. It slipped by somehow. Go to the hardware store and buy a bunch of those sticky traps. They are just flat pieces of heavy paper with one very sticky side. Put them around your house in the dark, undisturbed areas, up against the walls.
Brown Recluse spiders truly are reclusive. My daughter has had them in two houses in Nashville. Those sticky traps keep them in check. I told my daughter to always keep them out.
Jennifer
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