My Hero For The Day

Once you've met me...it doesn't take long to figure out my greatest phobia. Spiders. I don't like them. In fact, I HATE them. I tell Tim all the time that when we create worlds, there will BE NO spiders. He keeps telling me that my request is impossible. I would be perfectly fine with eight legged butterflies that suck the blood out of insects. Butterflies are pretty. I can handle pretty. Our good friends Mark and Kimmi use to live in Idaho. They had a cute little house that unfortunately provided a cute little home for spiders. Mark use to spray their house before we would come visit so that I wouldn't be tortured with the idea that spiders might be crawling around me. I always appreciated that...especially coming from Mark. Mark has this habit of trying to make me miserable most of the time...and I in turn love to reciprocate the misery. So the fact that he would actually try to make things more comfortable for me always meant a lot :).

I refuse to have anything to do with the horrid little creatures that only live to make me cringe. My entire life I have been terrified of them. In the house I grew up in, we had millions of them. Black ones. BIG, fast, black ones. Eight legged, horrible, hairy, humongous spiders. My response to them has never changed. Almost instantaneously, I cry. Not just a boo-hoo cry, but a full blown out sobbing terror cry. It just isn't pretty.

So...when Tim and I made the decision to move into the apartment in my parents basement...I knew that we would be dealing with spiders. For some creepy reason...spiders really like to hang out in basements. However, we've been having the basement sprayed every three months for the last two years, and honestly haven't had too many problems. Sure...they'll be the little one every now and then and I'll just yell for Tim and he comes to my rescue. But, for the last two weeks it seems like we have had an infestation of them. I finally worked up the nerve to squish the small ones. In fact, I've killed close to twenty of them with either Tim's shoe (I WON'T use my own. Gross), or by sucking them up in the vaccuum. I don't like it...but I'd rather that they were dead than let them run around having a party in my house.

Last night was a different story. Tim was at work. The whole 7 on 7 off schedule becomes quite inconvenient when it leaves me alone until 1:00 in the morning during his on schedule. That week I have to fend for myself when it comes to spiders. But, like I said...I've finally worked up the nerve to squish the SMALL ones. With our recent infestation, I had already killed about seven. But then I saw it. I had just dusted my small end table when I looked up. There it was. Big, black, eight-legged, and yes...hairy. We're talking the mother of all spiders. Of coarse...this was different than the little ones I had talked myself into killing all night long. The tears were flowing before I think I even registered what I was seeing. I backed myself into a corner very, very far away from it...and I called Tim. I'm still not sure exactly why I called him because he would be absolutely no help. He was at work...at least 20 minutes away. I guess I was just hoping he would do the whole snap of his fingers and miraculously appear in our family room with a big shoe in his hand to smoosh it. All he could do though was tell me it would be okay. However...I knew it would NOT be okay. He was lying to me! So...in broken sobs, I told him I was going to call my Dad. They live upstairs. I didn't need to call. But, I was worried that the minute I turned away, the monster spider would disappear. Then we would really have a problem. I called. My Dad was downstairs within seconds. The hugeness of the spider even startled him. But...with bravery I don't have I'm afraid...he killed the invader. However...for the rest of the night...I donned a pair of Tim's tennis shoes. WAY to big for my feet, but there was no way I was gonna use my shoes to squish a spider that might sneak up behind me. No way, no how. Although I miss my cute little house and look forward to the day when we have our own place again, last night I was very grateful that I live at home with my parents. My Dad is my hero. He's still willing to kill spiders for his very grown up daughter :).