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Tuesday, August 15, 2006
The Spiders: One Year Later
They're back. I somehow knew this day would come, but I had pushed it out of my mind as much as humanly possible.
It was pretty bad when I first moved in. We killed more spiders than I thought possible. And then the exterminator came and it wasn't so awful. I figured the empty apartment had just attracted them, and there was that incriminating opening in the bathroom window.
But it's happening again. And since the fateful day last year happened in the last week of August, I can only assume that it's going to get worse and worse. So bad that I'm going to huddle on my couch in the middle of the living room, eyes darting around to the walls at every little shadow moving.
Who am I kidding? My eyes are already doing that, as we speak. Stupid shadows.
See, there've been a couple of other bugs in my bedroom, but I knew it was from the gap in the window where I put in the air conditioner. I sprayed and they stopped coming.
Then last week, I killed a huge crunchy spider in my bathroom. The window was open, and again, I figured that's how he got in. Since I didn't particularly need that window to be open I just closed it and hoped that was it.
I was wrong. Just last night I'm sitting here, typing away, and I glance to my right and see a GIGANTIC SPIDER lowering himself down to the floor. Of course I freak out. The situation is made even worse by the fact that I AM OUT OF BUG SPRAY!
So I trap him underneath the cover of a blank CD canister and try to get on with my work. I just can't do it, because he's crawling all around in there, making me nervous, so I shut the door and go to the living room to watch some harmless Kyle XY. I don't enter again until this morning, after I have purchased some bug spray.
There he lay, motionless, making me thing that he might have died from lack of oxygen. But no, as soon as I lifted the cover, he tried to scurry away and OH HOW I SPRAYED!
Spider killed, I get back to work. But it's not over. I'm typing away, when my leg brushes up against a cobweb of some sort. I roll away and look underneath my desk to find ANOTHER HUGE CREEPY HAIRY CRUNCHY SPIDER! Who knows how long he's been there, lying in wait for me to be at my most vulnerable? He could have dropped down onto my leg at any given moment and I would have been powerless to stop him! POWERLESS I SAY!
I sprayed him and he BEGAN TO CRAWL TOWARD ME in an obvious last ditch attempt to make good on his mission to terrorize me and torment my soul. I rolled back further in fear, spraying him with all the strength and bravery I could muster. He fell to the floor and I threw the can down on top of his writhing body, scant inches away from the other spider corpse that still lay underneath the CD cover.
It's like a warzone in here, and I, the only soldier. I have so much to do on my computer, but I can barely bring myself to type this entry. I type, only because if I never post again, it will mean that I have lost the war, and the people need to know what happened.
Spread the word.
8/15/2006 11:47:00 AM link
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Tuesday, August 01, 2006
The Wave
It currently feels like 106 degrees outside right now. And it's been like this for a week now.
I'm certainly not going to complain. There are places in the country that are getting it far worse than Chicago is right now. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.
I live in a two bedroom apartment, with a fairly large living room and a very small kitchen and bathroom. Which means I pretty much have three rooms here.
Matched by the three air conditioners I have recently installed. I don't care what it does to my electric bill, I'd much rather be cool than die of heat stroke or have to watch Dharma and Greg with sweat dripping into my eyes. Because you know when it's 106 outside, it's about 120 inside. I have one of those floating glass thermometer things, and all of the colored balls have been sitting at the bottom of the tube for the last two months; I'm wondering if the thing is going to explode eventually, you know, because of the heat.
Before anyone gets all riled up about my blatant disregard for energy usage, I don't keep all three air conditioners running at once. If I fire up the one in the living room and keep the bedroom doors closed, it pretty much cools the whole front of the apartment. And then if I'm going to be spending any time in either of the bedrooms, I turn on one of those and close the door, sealing myself in the cold comfort.
Of course, installing all of these monstrosities on my own means that I have ripped my fingers to shreds. It wasn't until I'd finished with #2 that I realized that one shouldn't touch the metal strips on the back of the unit without wearing gloves. And who has work gloves laying around in a three room apartment?
Part of me felt guilty when I bought the second unit, and another part of me felt even more guilty (guiltier?) when I bought the third one. But those parts were clearly just suffering from heat exhaustion, because they don't seem to have a problem with it now.
Yes, you can come over if it's too hot at your place. Just bring some food. Preferably ice cream.
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