Arachnophobia

Like many adult aged children, I become a paranoid freak when I know my Mom is about to visit. Already a very clean individual, I never the less start cleaning like Molly Maid on speed. Thus, with my mother's imminent arrival tomorrow morning, the last 48 hours have been filled with pulling couches out from the wall, flipping chairs upside down, shoving my curvy little body underneath beds and going where no man has gone before. You might think that what I have been combating mostly has been dirt or dust or the clutter of three actors, but it has been far worse than that. Oh no, what I have been up against are those eight-legged, web-spinning, almost-invisible monsters.

That's right folks...we got spiders.

They are everywhere. Most of the them are the baby spiders, itsy bitsy spiders, and hundreds of them. At least they aren't bedbugs, but REALLY they are far from wonderful to have inhabiting every square inch of your home. What it up with me and torture-by-insect?

And what is up with the male versus female way of dealing with the eradication of the little critters? Syl and I will, when first stumbling across one (or a herd of many), scream and then go and grab papertowel to scoop them up and squish them to death. The male in the household will see them, not scream but rather sigh, then pick up whatever hard object happens to be within arms reach and smash the bejeezuz out of them. Makes me ask the much larger question - is having a penis undeniably the same thing as violence and aggression?

Now that the house is clean (or at least in a state that won't send my mother into convulsions) most of the cobwebs and spiders are gone. The house is at peace. Tomorrow The Parental Unit arrives and life will be filled with challenges bigger than spiders. It will also be filled with lots of Team Konkin love.

And as long as it isn't mice that I am having to deal with, I am a happy camper.