Arachnophobia: Shower Edition

                I am seriously terrified of spiders; scream and flee the premise, jump off your lawnmower, run shrieking in the other direction, terrified! My first scary spider memory is from the day I learned about black widows; it still sends chills down my spine! I am not sure how young I was, but I was with my mom in my god-mother, D.W.’s kitchen. She has this amazing tall, old barber’s chair that I have always loved to sit in. D.W. held an old jar up to me to show me the small, brown spider, curling up in death, within and told me about its’ poisonous mate. I still feel the same terror coursing through my body from that sunny afternoon every time I see a spider. I have had nightmares, jumped off of moving vehicles, cried, thrown up, almost crashed my car more times that I will willingly admit to, you name it! Those little monsters scare the shit out of me!

                In the fall of 2016, my daughter and I lived with my grandmother while we waited for our Canadian visas to be processed. Nanny is a wonderful woman with the spirit of a selfless child, the wit of a confident woman’s mid-twenties, and the wisdom of Albus Dumbledore. Accepting of all, indubiously hilarious, undeniably kind (and have I mentioned she’s a boss-ass-liberal?), she began asking me not to use the word “hate”. She always says, “There’s enough of that out in the universe already, and we shouldn’t be adding anymore.” She makes a solid point. This extended to my treatment of spiders. “Next time don’t kill it,” I was scolded as I wrung my hands in terror after smushing a spider with a napkin, “come and get me. I will put it out!” Nanny, if you’re reading this, I tried to let them live, really I did! They just won’t stay away.

                A couple of weeks ago, I was sweeping out the bathroom and saw a tiny, nearly translucent spider crawling away from the pile. Trying to take my wise grandmother’s advice, I waited until it was clear of the sweeping area before I continued. When my husband came home that night, I proudly told him of my feat (because he is always making fun of me for being scared about little things). Jude laughed at me, saying, “Sarah, it was probably poisonous! The smaller ones are the most poisonous!”

                “No way,” I retorted. “What about tarantulas? Or those giant camel spiders? Or the female black widows?”

                Jude laughed coolly and walked away, calling back, “Whatever you say, Sarah.” That bastard always knows how to get me real good.

I tried to tell myself he was just kidding, but the thought haunted me for days! As I played happily with my daughter, I felt the sudden clasp of panic around my neck, imagining the spider quietly biting my child in the night; getting dressed in the mornings, I suddenly worried the spider would be on my hairbrush giving it a thorough search; when a loose hair fell on my chest, I clawed frantically at my skin for a moment. All in all, I was really freaking out about this dumb conversation. A few nights later, I was getting ready to step into the shower when I saw, crawling along the baseboard of the tub, that spider. I totally freaked out! I wanted to go get Jude to crush it for me, but suspected he would tell me to get over it. (Marriage means nothing, girls!) As I tried to determine what to do, I thought back to the spring of 2016 and the great Jumper Spider Panic. As I had tried to identify that spider (it was found twice in my laundry room), some research suggested I could test if a spider was possibly venomous by poking at it with something; if it attacked it, I should run for the hills. I poked at the spider with the pen from my bathroom guest book, shaking with fear, and wouldn’t you know it? That freak of nature attacked my pen (sort of). J’accuse! I crushed it with some toilet paper.

                Tonight, as I showered, I was busting a sweet move and flipped my hair too excitedly leaving a long line of water dripping from the ceiling. (Oops.) I have done this enough before that I know it needs to be cleaned up quickly. As I finished up drying the ceiling with a hand towel, I saw it: ANOTHER OF THOSE SPIDERS!!! I knew there was only one reason it would be there: IT’S COME TO HAVE IT’S REVENGE FOR IT’S FALLEN COMRADE!!! I jumped out of the shower in a panic, balled up some toilet paper, and hesitantly went back for the beast. I have a bad habit of missing things and them falling down (often onto me), but I did my best. After pressing firmly for several seconds, I pulled back the tissue to reveal…nothing? OH SHIT! CODE DANGER! I shot out of the shower again, grabbing my glasses to see where the little devil was hiding. Turns out his little body just fell down onto the side of the tub, but damn, it scared me. Now I am living in fear, certain at any moment, more of them will come for me. If I die of poison, Jude really is innocent…maybe.

Bandits of the Night

          At the end of October 2016 Lucy, Jude, and I moved from Virginia to a nicely done basement apartment in Burnaby, BC.  Thankfully the apartment was furnished because my parents could not drive our things out to us for another month. There were still a few basic things usually needed in every day family life that weren't in the apartment already and one of those things was a trash can. We also did not have access to an outdoor trash can until the night before trash day each week. We were living in the suburbs without a car and constantly dragging a stroller through the snow, so we weren't able to get trash cans until my mom came to visit with all of our stuff at the end of November. Not wanting our house to stink of garbage all the time, we piled small trash bags in a corner by our front door. It was our best available solution at the time, but came with a few problems: it always smelled really bad when you were trying to unlock the door, earth worms would always be piled up in our doorway, and it drew to us the bandits of the night (A.K.A. raccoons).

          As adorable as the two raccoons who frequented the buffet de Smith were, the trash strewn across our walkway each morning was less so. As much as I disliked cleaning up the trash, I was very fond of the raccoons. First I met Jerry, the outgoing ringleader, who came most often. I later learned of the second raccoon, who I dubbed Rodger, Jerry's life partner, but it is Jerry who I got to know the most.

          Every couple of nights, I would catch Jerry red-handed busting into my trash bags. I would shoo him away to a nearby bush he liked to hide in, stand in my doorway, and wait for his inevitable return. He would poke his little head around the corner, see me glaring at him, and give me a look of baffled innocence. He was so charming, that I started to feel guilty for trying to keep him away from his source of food. As a fellow lover of eating, I understood the pain of being kept away from your dinner. His big round eyes looked so sweet and hungry that I quickly caved. I didn't want Jerry trashing my stoop anymore, so I started leaving him scraps just beneath his bush when I saw him around. (I should add that I didn't tell Jude knowing he would disapprove.)

          One night, I saw Jerry outside poking around in the trash, opened the door to shoo him, and went back to grab him so food. I thought he must have run into his bush so I left the food there. When I came back around the corner, however, Jerry was half way down the steps going for the trash again.

         "Jerry!" I hissed in surprise. Jerry was surprised, too. He was so surprised in fact, that he took off straight through my open door and into my living room. Half of me panicked that Jude would hear our commotion and bust me for befriending "a wild animal" and half of me was running through a fantasy of Jerry becoming my pet. I started to go inside after Jerry to try to chase him out before Jude became aware of the situation as Jerry looked around bewildered, turning a few circles on my welcome mat before taking off past me up the stairs. I was semi-disappointed, but kind of relieved that Jude hadn't busted me for unintentionally letting a raccoon in the house.

          About a week later, we finally got an outdoor trash can. I started leaving more food out for Jerry and Rodger. It had just snowed and one night the bread I left out for them froze before they found it. Unfortunately for me, Jude did find it as he left for work the next morning. That night we had an interesting discussion.

Jude: Sarah, I found some bread outside by the bush this morning.

Me: What did you do with it?

Jude: It was frozen. Did you put it there?

Me: Maybe.

Jude: Are you feeding the raccoons?

Me: Their names are Jerry and Rodger, Jude.

Jude: Saraaaaaah! Why?

Me: I feel so guilty, Jude! They're so accustomed to getting their meals here, and now we're locking it all up in a can! They need to eat, too, you know!

Jude: Saraaaah! You're going to get us kicked out of our home if you keep doing this! Mr. Lou was just telling me they're having a problem with raccoons!

Me: We won't get kicked out! They're not even going into Lou's part of the yard! He'll never know!

Jude: Sarah! They're wild animals!

Me: That's racist! Or...species-ist! Raccoons need to eat just as much as we do. And they're so sweet!

Jude: No they're not! They could have rabies and Jerry ran right by me the other day. It scared the crap out of me! And they are plenty fat; they're getting plenty of food somewhere.

Me: They do not have rabies, Jude!

Jude: They could! How would you know?

Me: I saw a rabid raccoon up close when I was a kid! They are not rabid! And if they were, they'd come out in the day time, not the night time!

Jude: Saraaaah! You don't known what kinds of diseases they could have! Plus they could be vicious!

Me: They are not vicious. Jerry has excellent manners! He was such a gentleman when he got in the house!

Jude: WHEN HE WHAT?

Me: It's no big deal, Jude!

Jude: HE GOT IN THE HOUSE? WHEN??

Me: A couple of weeks ago!

Jude: Where was I!?

Me: In your office!

Jude: WHAT??

Me: I thought he went into the bush, so I followed him to give him some food, but when I came back he was on the steps and he ran inside.

Jude: What? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN FEEDING THEM?

Me: It doesn't matter! He realized he was in our house and politely excused himself right away. I think he even said he was so sorry for intruding in raccoon language probably.

Jude: Saraaaaah! No more feeding the raccoons!

Me: They have names, Jude.

Jude: Fine! No more feeding Jerry and Rodger!

Me: Ugh! Fine!

Jude: Promise me!

Me: Fiiiiine, Jude!

Jude: Sat it! Say you promise you won't feed them anymore!

Me: You don't trust me?

Jude: SAY IT!

Me: I said fine!

          This is the point where I started pretending to be asleep to avoid saying I promised. I actually did stop feeding them because Jude did make a good point that we are renters and could get evicted, but it's really fun to leave him in suspense sometimes.

Update:

        It has been only two days since I wrote this, but things have taken an unexpected turn. Jerry and Rodger are on my donezo list. I got a package later than usual yesterday. Our mail is left on the front step of my landlord's house and we live in the back so we don't always know it's there. The package was a Christmas gift from my childhood friend, Alexus, containing a gift for my daughter, cookies, chocolate, and hot chocolate packets for Jude and me. THOSE ROTTEN NIGHT MONSTERS RIPPED INTO IT AND ATE MY COOKIES!!!!!!!!!! (They missed the chocolate though, so who's the real winner here, COONS?)