Our Little Friends.....

I HATE bugs. Hate em. Just so you are aware, this post is not about adorable babies dressed as some of the cuter members of the insect family (I was a ladybug for my first Halloween too... aww... how cute). It is about the harsh reality of these nasty nasty little creatures that love to torment humans. I couldn't bring myself to post a picture of one of those because even the pictures give me the total heebe jeebies. Yep, it's been one of those days...

This morning I woke up at 5:30 for one of my early morning writing sessions. I stepped out our bedroom door and blearily, looked around the room. A small movement caught my eye. In the crack between the tiles in our entryway was an earwig or some kind of long, disgusting creature with lots of wiggly legs, squirming around. GROSS! I watched it for a minute and it wasn't really going anywhere, so I just kept my eye on it. Then another movement caught my eye. About a foot away, was a potato bug, crawling on our carpet. I took Seth's flip flop (the one designated for bug killing,) and rolled that rolly poly right back onto the tile. When it finally gained the courage to open up from it's safe little ball again, alas it was on its back. I watched it struggle for a long time but it could not flip over no matter what it did. I began to feel sorry for the little guy, but I wasn't letting him out of my sight. Needless the say the writing wasn't going so well. Turns out I am a very diligent bug sitter.

As I watched my two little companions, yet another movement caught my eye. Seth and I have been aware of the small crack under our front door for sometime. However, we have never actually seen bugs get through it. I think we thought it was too small (but I was pretty sure that was where my two friends came from, seeing as they were right in front of it.) WRONG! From under the door popped a little ball, it almost looked like a little seed. Then the seed opened and another potato bug started crawling toward the carpet. This one was smaller. Perhaps the bigger one's baby, come to find its mommy in our house? More carefully, I rolled this one onto the tile as well. When it finally opened it was stuck on its back too. Poor poly bug. Although it was kind of funny that they both somehow ended up on their backs.

These three new acquaintances kept my company until Seth woke up. I showed him our little zoo. He went straight to the bathroom, grabbed a wad of toilet paper, smashed all three into it, and flushed them down the toilet. All the while I was protesting and dealing with my inner conflict of attachment to my new friends. However, once the reality of their deaths set in, I realized that they had only acted helpless to win my love. After that, they probably would have swarmed and done who knows what gross things buggies do. Evil little tormentors, evil.

After my only class of the day, Seth and I headed home from school (9:00 am) to make a yummy omelet. We realized that we were out of sour cream! So I rushed to the store to pick some up. On the way back into our house, I saw another nasty. We have these little eight legged friends that live in our entryway. They are actually not that small and look EXACTLY like black widows except they have a white spot instead of the red hourglass. They scare the life out of me. Imagine if one of those got in our house... joarjhflkanfnanlkasdnf AHHHHH!!! I would probably faint. And then wake up and be sick. Anyway, we've found three of these so far. I opened the door, yelled for Seth, he came running and heroically slayed the beast. So scary.

Later in the day when Seth was at work, I decided to take a shower. I started to water to let it warm up. When I decided the water was sufficiently warm, I opened the shower curtain to find a BIG BROWN SPIDER swimming for its life! Oh yes, we also have these brown spiders in our house. We have seen them many times. Our first was before we actually moved in to our house and were hanging out watching a movie. Since we had no furniture yet, I laid down on the floor. I felt something moving against my arm. I jumped up and saw one of the spider scurrying away. EWWW! Since then, there have been many more encounters. Anyway, back to the issue at hand, I skillfully used what little movement our shower head allows to manipulate the spider down the drain. Then I turned on the tub faucet full blast and scalding hot, just for good measure. Then I put in the plug and proceeded to take my shower. Yes, the shower filled up with water, but I wasn't taking the chance of having that little nasty come swimming back out at me.

However, on a more positive note, I KILLED A SPIDER TODAY!!! I can never do that. I am so afraid of them that I can't even kill them (as you may have been able to tell by my waiting for Seth to kill all the other bugs today.) When I was younger, I made my brother kill the spiders in my room. When he was older and less gullible, I bribed him with small toys, candy, even money. But today, I faced my fear. True, I was several feet away from the spider. And also true that there was no way the spider could have actually gotten to me. But regardless of circumstance or argument, I did it. I feel so accomplished.

In conclusion, bugs are gross. They love to taunt and torment me. If you see one, stay away. Or find a boy to kill it. The end.

*amber*