Insects

I'm not fond of them.

You know how I feel about Black Widows, Brown Recluses and of course, the centipedes. (Update--while the offending centipede has not been sighted since his foray up my arm, I must assume he has left the building, or perished somewhere. Perhaps a Brown Recluse ate him. Or a rattlesnake. At any rate, I have resumed sitting on/lying on my couch. I still will not use a blanket, in case the centipede is actually hiding there.)

Having spent far too long reading websites about Brown Recluse Spiders--their bite wounds, hunting habits, etc, I'm pretty vigilant about checking the sheets before I get into bed, and not leaving piles of clothes on the floor.

Feeling rather smart, if there is, say, a pair of shorts that I have worn but aren't actually dirty enough to wash (I'm not the only one that does this, right?) I'll put them on a shelf in my closet.

(Aside: I love my closet. It's not huge, but it's my first walk-in. One day I'm going to install fancy organizers, and then I'll feel just like a princess. Really.)

So, this morning I reach up to grab my brown shorts, which are safely stowed away, up out of the reach of spiders.

Or so I thought.

I noticed something jump off my brown shorts, onto the white shorts (which were up there for the same purpose.) Convincing myself it was just a piece of brown lint, I peeked up again. There, on my white shorts, was a BROWN JUMPY SPIDER!!!!!! (I don't know that they're called. You know the ones, though? Small, brown, like to jump all over the place?)

ARRRRGHHHHHHH!!!!!

There is no hiding from spiders. This is something I must overcome. And overcome I did. I calmly grabbed toilet paper and smooshed the little sucker. I didn't even get my usual chills and uncontrollable need to shriek. But I did throw his little Brown Jumpy Spider corpse in the toilet and flush. Just in case he wasn't dead. No way was I risking that thing jumping out of the trash can.

Kisses,