Creepy-Crawly? NOT in My House!!
I have a confession to make.
I am quite prejudiced about….bugs.
Most bugs, well, I don’t like them – flat out. There’s just something incredibly creepy about their hard shell and their ichor, and the fact that their presence in my cupboards makes me feel like an utter failure as a house keeper (yeah, I know…like the trail of discarded shoes stretching from the front door to my office isn’t the first give-a-way that Monk and I are not related).
I’m okay with butterflies and moths. I think praying mantises are exceedingly cool. Ladybugs? Fun until they devour my herbs. Caterpillars, another cool critter, but then they are by extension part of the Butterfly Club®.
That about does it. After that, everything else is fair game for unadulterated dislike/hatred/fear.
Topping the list of bugs I don’t like – ants. I have good reason though – I am highly sensitive to fire-ant bites. Might come from tap dancing on a nest at age 2, but whatever the reason, they sting, I have issues. I’m not quite at eppy-pin stage, but unfortunately, I’m probably only one or two incidences away from taping one to the back of my Blackberry. Ants I will smash/spray/flood/burn – whatever it takes to get rid of them. I don’t care if they’re fire ants or not – they cannot, will not, occupy the same space as I do without serious consequences!
A close second – cockroaches/palmetto bugs. I hate them, hate them, hate them!! They totally creep me out, and living in the south and in the country, they are EVERYWHERE! I can’t even go into how much the freak/creep me out. They are the one bug I will leap onto furniture to avoid any possibility of contact. In fact…I can’t strike them to kill them. I just can’t! They might not die! They might…GASP live and attack!! It’s horrible.
Cockroaches are a reason to call my lover, call my parents, siblings, neighbors, hell complete strangers – to DEAL with them! Yuck!
But…in a pinch…well, a can of Raid and a BIG mouthed jar (to keep the palmetto bug RIGHT where I can see it!) works wonders – after anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes of tabletop dancing… What can I say? I’m a writer! Drama is part of my psyche.
But then there’s the spiders.
Spiders. Really, they challenge me. As I said, I live in the country. Spiders are everywhere – outside. Outside is good! Orb weavers are amazing creatures that spin webs that would make Charlotte green with envy, but we also have Brown Recluse spiders that don’t just bite, they freaking dissolve your flesh!
I don’t mind little spiders in my house. Hey, they help keep the other bugs in check – but bigger spiders – nickel-sized or larger – have NO place here!
So, as it is I have one – an agile, fleshy thing that could stretch across a half-dollar from leg-tip to leg-tip – and he’d taken up residence in my spare room right in front of my vacuum cleaner! Wily critter. He was keeping me from the instrument of its demise. The standoff has begun…
But Fate is a funny thing. On Twitter, one of my friends is horror photographer Amanda Norman – a fellow horror lover, AND, as I learned, Spider-Slayer extraordinaire!
She has suggested the Mop Technique, but for me, I will substitute a broom.
Alas, the wily spider, sensing his impending doom, has disappeared.
My Broom Technique is yet untested…but I am…hopeful.
Stay tuned on Twitter for updates!
I am quite prejudiced about….bugs.
Most bugs, well, I don’t like them – flat out. There’s just something incredibly creepy about their hard shell and their ichor, and the fact that their presence in my cupboards makes me feel like an utter failure as a house keeper (yeah, I know…like the trail of discarded shoes stretching from the front door to my office isn’t the first give-a-way that Monk and I are not related).
That about does it. After that, everything else is fair game for unadulterated dislike/hatred/fear.
Topping the list of bugs I don’t like – ants. I have good reason though – I am highly sensitive to fire-ant bites. Might come from tap dancing on a nest at age 2, but whatever the reason, they sting, I have issues. I’m not quite at eppy-pin stage, but unfortunately, I’m probably only one or two incidences away from taping one to the back of my Blackberry. Ants I will smash/spray/flood/burn – whatever it takes to get rid of them. I don’t care if they’re fire ants or not – they cannot, will not, occupy the same space as I do without serious consequences!
A close second – cockroaches/palmetto bugs. I hate them, hate them, hate them!! They totally creep me out, and living in the south and in the country, they are EVERYWHERE! I can’t even go into how much the freak/creep me out. They are the one bug I will leap onto furniture to avoid any possibility of contact. In fact…I can’t strike them to kill them. I just can’t! They might not die! They might…GASP live and attack!! It’s horrible.
Cockroaches are a reason to call my lover, call my parents, siblings, neighbors, hell complete strangers – to DEAL with them! Yuck!
But…in a pinch…well, a can of Raid and a BIG mouthed jar (to keep the palmetto bug RIGHT where I can see it!) works wonders – after anywhere between 5 and 10 minutes of tabletop dancing… What can I say? I’m a writer! Drama is part of my psyche.
But then there’s the spiders.
Spiders. Really, they challenge me. As I said, I live in the country. Spiders are everywhere – outside. Outside is good! Orb weavers are amazing creatures that spin webs that would make Charlotte green with envy, but we also have Brown Recluse spiders that don’t just bite, they freaking dissolve your flesh!
I don’t mind little spiders in my house. Hey, they help keep the other bugs in check – but bigger spiders – nickel-sized or larger – have NO place here!
So, as it is I have one – an agile, fleshy thing that could stretch across a half-dollar from leg-tip to leg-tip – and he’d taken up residence in my spare room right in front of my vacuum cleaner! Wily critter. He was keeping me from the instrument of its demise. The standoff has begun…
But Fate is a funny thing. On Twitter, one of my friends is horror photographer Amanda Norman – a fellow horror lover, AND, as I learned, Spider-Slayer extraordinaire!
She has suggested the Mop Technique, but for me, I will substitute a broom.
Alas, the wily spider, sensing his impending doom, has disappeared.
My Broom Technique is yet untested…but I am…hopeful.
Stay tuned on Twitter for updates!
Posted by Angela Caperton at 9/2/2009 9:51 PM 
Categories: Horror, Spiders, Phobias, Insects
Tags: Amanda Norman Horror Spiders Phobias Insects
Categories: Horror, Spiders, Phobias, Insects
Tags: Amanda Norman Horror Spiders Phobias Insects
Comments