LOBO 1, Nature 0
Predator Press [LOBO]
While being convinced to move here, a mystifying, eh, 'economy of words' were employed when describing native Californian wildlife -in fact I don’t think the phrase “spiders that can kill you” alighted my ear a single time. Hence my eye-rolling when Terri picked up a bite a few weeks ago ... What do I look like? Some kind of spideronomist? Blech! I simply hadn’t yet been briefed on the matter.
“Why didn’t you kill it?” I says, twisting the jar as to eye her tiny assailant better.
“Because I need to find out what kind it is,” she says, already on Google.
“Haw, look at this teeny thing,” I guffaw, tapping the glass. “Should I call the life insurance company and triple your policy?”
“It’s not funny,” she insists. “I once saw a woman in the hospital with her leg almost rotted off from the venom.”
I’m willing to bet I had dug through the plaster, six inches of fiberglass insulation and two inches of floorboarding clear to the ceiling joists before that jar even started to shatter.
SO I’ve been a little edgy lately, but I seriously don’t think it’s paranoia; I think it’s due more to sleep depravation from imagining those crawly things moving ever closer in the quiet darkness, chattering in increasingly brazen sub-human (perhaps telepathic) frequencies, and drooling insatiably for human flesh, blood and bone.
Technically that's insomnia.
Unfortunately I saw another one this morning.
In the kitchen.
In the house.
And –I swear upon various gods this is true- the thing ran at me when it saw me.
As I stepped back reflexively, it dawns on me that I’m in socks and shorts. Worse, my bandoleer of alphabetized aerosol pesticides -carelessly set aside in a moment of reckless bravado- is on the counter several feet away.
This little bastard had it all planned out, didn’t he? I’m smirking to myself. Just be cool LOBO. Don’t show it any fucking fear. That’s what it wants. You can't let something the size of a quarter push you around when your bandoleer of alphabetized aerosol pesticides is just a few ... more ...
It moved forward –to me- again.
I moved back, creeping closer to the bandoleer.
... inches ...
Another advance by the spider.
... away ...
And just as I got my fingers around that leather belt, the spider -from a distance of maybe a yard or so- jumped on my leg.
These aren’t Infantry! I realize in horror. I got Airborne! I got Airborne!
But I was prepared for this eventuality: with cunning and guile, I begin flailing my arms wildly while running in circles and screaming exactly as I’d drilled so many times already ... and the second that thing dropped to the floor again WHAMMO I smashed it under the swift, lethal Justice of my microwave oven. Unconvinced my foe was truly vanquished, I then toppled the refrigerator over that wreckage.
-It's a good thing we rent, or fighting these things would be expensive.
Comments
Humbled by the thought of God having provided His mighty protection and delivered me from Evil, I fall to my knees in a weeping prayer.
"Lord," it goes as I recall, "First let me say how glad I am to be smiting Evil as per Your Will. And that in Your Wisdom you ensured I was renting during this vicious attack by Nature, as there is absolutely no freakin way I could have possibly replaced these evil-smiting appliances that were expended as required in Your Hallowed service."
Silence.
"But the fact that the landlord's phone number was attached to the fridge with the 'Welcome to Philadelphia' magnet I found in the mayonnaise is really going to complicate things," I add.
Same for Texas where I live now.
I don't go out much.