So, the other night, Kenzie and I were starting to "wind down" for the night, when out of the corner of my eye I saw something scurry across the floor... at first I thought it was a mouse- no biggie, but upon further glance (and turning my head) I literally FLIPPED OUT. After a few choice words (noted: not my finest parenting moment, I'm sure) I grabbed Kenzie- put her away in our room, the hurled Panzer in Kenzie's bedroom (Lord knows that cat would decide to be curious tonight!). When I went back into the living room I noticed Daisy- whining on the couch looking at me like "THAT'S ALL YOU." Great- nice guard dog (although I wouldn't have wanted her to go after this thing). I got closer to the "spider"- I say "spider" because this was basically a baby tarantula. NO JOKE. Upon further (quick) calculations I realized that not even Caleb's boot was going to squish this thing (that is to say if I got THAT close to it)... so, off to the kitchen I ran. I entered the living room with a frying pan and some sort of car cleaner (don't judge- my neighbor had our bug-spray)... that's about the time my neighbor called me back, so I practically begged (although I used alcohol as a bribe) for her husband to come over and kill it. On a side note, I'd like to add, that while her husband was deployed, Caleb was called on several occassions. What seemed like 20minutes (which was only like 2minutes) my neighbor came in with a newspaper. By that time, I had lost sight of the spider and had even removed my couch... but said it probably went into the hallway or Kenzie's room... he opened the door of Kenzie's room only to spurt out another few choice words (by this time I'm sure Kenzie was either sound asleep, or had heard it before when I said things)... "so- you think that newspaper is going to do the trick? Because... I totally have a pan." "That's seriously the biggest spider I've ever seen outside of a zoo." A few thwacks of a large book, and the spider was gone- flushed down the toilet "just to be safe". While I was relieved that he KNEW I wasn't exaggerating, I was like oh, crap... THAT was IN MY HOUSE. I dialed the maintenance #, only to leave a voicemail as this wasn't technically an emergency (they actually go through a list of "what's qualified as an emergency"). Nope- MASSIVE SPIDER/baby tarantula wasn't on that list. So... guess who DID NOT sleep that night? This girl. I even left every light on in the house (because, spiders are totally scared of the dark right?) ;)
The next morning I got called from the maintenance team, telling me that they had already scheduled someone to come out TODAY (before noon) to spray. I'm telling you- I don't think I've ever let out a bigger sigh of relief... welllllllllll, around 11:45am, I was still waiting. I called back, only to be told "ohh, mam, I'm so sorry, I FORGOT to put you on the schedule". Wellllllllllll, my response was (after a big breath as to not freak out on this poor woman who've I already called several times within the last week- c'mon now, I live in a "historic" home- and any military wife can attest to living in a military home... yes, it's a house, but yeesh... let me tell you) "lady, you've GOTTA get someone here- TODAY. I'm serious... I, I... I just can't wait another day. I have a BABY here." About 20 minutes later she called me, to only say that "someone CAN in fact come out today, but it's not going to make a difference because you live on a military post, it's a "no kill" type deal..." (what in the world?!?!) Basically, the guy could come out and spray, but it's a "bait"- which, we did at our old house when we had ants- and this "bait" works for 14 days... so, for 2 WEEKS, you've got ants coming out of every wood work to get this spray, only to HOPEFULLY bring it back to their colony to kill the rest off... can you even imagine TRYING to do that with spiders? No freakin' way. Nope. So, after telling her that the man could come out to spray ONLY OUTSIDE (in theory, thinking that the spiders would get attracted to go OUTSIDE) I headed to Walmart to get every "non toxic" spider concoction I could get my hands on. I swear I must've looked like a ghost buster... praise the Lord my neighbors were either inside, or too nice to judge me... 3 tubs later (I either didn't take account of the square footage, or overkilled on the spray- I'm thinking the latter... but whatev). I'm not even going to tell you if I've seens a spider since, because heaven help me if I do say, and I see another spider tonight. December can't come soon enough!
