Invasion Of The Spider

Since I'm revealing all of my ridiculous fears, here's another one. First, let's run down the roster: Afraid of heights in a severely debilitating manner. Afraid of meeting new people in an awkward sweaty palmed sort of way. And now...

Afraid of spiders. Heart racing, hyperventilating, weak kneed, curse-wording phobia of mine.

The more information about myself I divulge, the more I start to compare myself to the stereotypical nerd that's allergic to and afraid of everything. Somewhat of a Milhouse from the Simpsons. Whatever. Milhouse is pretty cool in his own way. Ack. My glasses. 

Anywho, I am deathly afraid of spiders. Let me give you a little history to explain my fear.

Let the wavy flashback imagery commence...

7 years old. Little Leia Marie all tucked in ready for bed in my awesome bunk bed. My little bro had his own room, but I had a bunk bed that housed all 47 of my super cool stuffed animal friends on the top bunk. I was a pretty big deal to have all of them friends. 

Picture me, slowly drifting off to sleep in my room, on the bottom bunk, windows open, wind gently blowing the silky white lace curtains back and forth above my bed, like a youngster swinging in the yard.

A tickling sensation interrupts this peaceful moment just before sleep sets in. I stir a bit and the tickling continues. I put my hand up to brush what I think is a piece of my wispy blonde hair...and immediately feel a - get ready for it...SMOOSH.

Aww shit. What just happened? I look at my little hand, and the aftermath of the smooshing is: A CRAPLOAD OF SPIDER GUTS AND BLOOD.

Oh my freaking GAWD!! It was huge. From what I gather from the leftover bits and pieces...IT WAS GIGANTIC.

This huge disgusting thing was crawling on my head AND DIED ON MY FACE, PEOPLE!!!

Upon my mother's further inspection the next day, it appears that the effing spiders decided to set up a freaking kingdom in my Barbie house, and were just chillin' in there like it was a nasty ass spider hotel.

I guess they bought some Raid or other crap to get rid of them, but the memory still haunts me.

Needless to say, I've been terrified of the creatures ever since.

Fast forward to adulthood.

I'm doing some laundry, and I hear Sassy Girl scream. I run upstairs at mach speed and I ask her what is wrong.

"MOM!! THERE'S A HUGE SPIDER ON THE CEILING!!"

Aww crap. Why couldn't it have been something...anything else?? An overflowing toilet. Ghost. Sasquatch in the backyard. No. Huge freaking spider on the ceiling.

Ok. Sassy Girl is freaking. She points to it again. I look in it's direction. Ok. Maybe I can just let this spider chill. It's cool as long as it hangs up there on the ceiling.

But what if it gets the crazy idea to swing down on it's crazy spider web and land smack dab on my face??!!

No thank you Mr. Spider. You must die now.

I grab a shoe and a Bounty paper towel. (Super thick quilted action, ya know?)

I think I have gathered up the courage to take this spider out.

I step up onto the couch and inch up closer to the spider...

I chicken out. I'm cursing my husband for wasting the day away at work and leaving me to matters of spider assassinations. I get the quivers so bad and shriek like a little girl. Then my kids scream. I'm sure the neighbors thought there was a murder taking place.

I'm hyperventilating as Mr. Spider crawls carelessly across MY ceiling. All black and gross. How dare you.

Sassy Girl really steps up as the strong one in family. She's not quite tall enough to reach him with just a quilted Bounty paper towel.

I swallow my pride, and get my 7 year old the broom. She's such a rock star.

She swipes at the invader. It falls. Loud screams. Mostly from me. Little Dude had the job of grabbing the spider with the paper towel. He fails. Like Mother, like Son.

Sassy Girl takes another one for the team and picks that spider up with the paper towel and disposes of him.


My seven year old is my freaking hero.

She rocks pretty hard.

We've been "Glueped"!

Geez Louise, I've been a horrible blogger. I do have an excuse though. Seriously, it's not laziness this time. This time...

I JUST got my laptop back from being repaired. Got an awesome friend who is a genius at fixin' broken computer stuff. Totally sucking up, cuz he's nice to have on speed dial for those brilliant moments when I have exhausted all of my fixing abilities. As in...restart computer. Nope. Still broken. 

This time though, we had a serious problem. Really it was a case of the computer being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Possibly a tiny bit my fault, but we are not here to point fingers. Sometimes I don't think stuff through very well. I should probably attend a workshop or something on "Thinking Stuff Through - The Key to Success." It probably exists. 

So, I was being an AWESOME mom and getting all "Bill Nye the Science Guy" with Little Dude. Courtesy of Google. You can impress the heck out of preschoolers by your massive amount of knowledge gained by the internet. Anyway, the afternoon kicked off with attempting an experiment to make "Gluep". The old Borax, glue, water trick. Supplies were all laid out on the table ready to go. Little Dude measures out some water in a cup. So far so good. We mix up our concoction and the end result was a rubbery silly putty lump. Sounds lame...but we MADE it, so it was pretty sweet. So sweet, in fact, that it caused a little ruckus in the preschooler excitement factory and some jittery moves were the culprit in tipping over the leftover "Gluep" ingredients directly on the keyboard of my laptop. Crap. Remember that thinking stuff through comment? Yeah. I now know that computers, almost 5 yr olds, and liquid experiments definitely don't mix. Pretty sure I should have known that before we started...but I'm letting the past stay in the past.  

Cue cliche slow motion clip. "Nnnnnnoooooo!!!!"  And then being the quick thinker I am, I grab a towel. The screen turns into a psychedelic acid hallucination. Oh man. This is not good. What do I do?? Slight panicky thoughts. Maybe I should pour some Minute Rice on it? No. Probably not going to help...and seems messy. Plus we only have enough for dinner. 

Okay. Got it. Restart. Always works.

Hit restart and the computer acts like it's going to start up all normal...then in total jerk fashion it goes blank and makes an alarming beeping noise. Nope. This is not good at all. My "professional" diagnosis...we have a one broken computer.

One broken computer and a lump of smelly "Gluep". Perfect. 

In the end it all worked out. I survived weeks without a computer. How? I don't know. My phone is a poor substitute for a computer but it took the edge off. So spoiled by technology. Slightly ashamed...but it is what it is. 

The computer is home, and the "Gluep" went in the trash after collecting a coat of dog hair and cracker crumbs.

Little Dude wants to make more. I'm putting the computer in the hall closet. Just to be safe....