Wake up, wake up!
Proven ways to wake up in the morning:
Coffee.
Red Bull.
Mountain Dew.
Spider in the shower.
One morning last week, groggy from staying up too late to watch the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, I stumble into the shower as usual. Start the water, throw the towel over the shower rod (I have this thing about having water on my face and not being able to dry it off), hop in, wet the hair.....
What's that? Something dark at the top of the wall in front of me. I don't have my contacts in or my glasses on, so I can't quite tell. I squint, and decide it's a moth. I go to reach for the shampoo bottle and it drops down on an invisible string. Moths don't spin webs, so logically, it's not a moth.
GAAACK! There's a spider in my shower!!!! One big enough for my Mr. Magoo eyes to see on their own. And thus starts the heart racing, the trying-not-to-hyperventilate breathing. The muffled screaming (as if a spider will hear me scream and decide he'd better leave because he's scaring me? Shyeah.).
He hangs out, on a line about 15 inches long -- which puts him just above eye level. I ponder the options.
I could grab a shampoo bottle and smush him. Eeew. Then -- presuming I have decent aim and he doesn't scurry -- I have spider guts on my wall, as well as on the bottle. Eeew.
I could splash some water on him and try to wash him down the drain. But -- presuming I have decent aim and he doesn't scurry -- I may have a spider with a good grip at any point in the tub, near my feet (which might look like good climbing walls from that vantage point). And, given the amount of hair of mine that's accumulated on the drain, he might not actually go down. Eeew. Besides, how would I get that much water on him? Well, there's that drain lever cover.
Aha!
The drain lever cover. A marvelous little invention that covers the overflow drain so that you can get another 2 or 3 inches of water in the tub -- which is a HUGE difference. Anyway -- it has suction cups to keep it on the wall, is clear so I can keep an eye on my shower buddy, and aside from the hole on one side (so that you don't really overfill the tub), seems like a perfect Temporary Shower Spider Container.
I retrieve the cover from the opposite corner, keeping an eye on the blur that I know to be the spider for as long as I can. A little water on the tiny suction cups to make sure they stick, a careful aim, aaaand.....WHAM! I've contained me a spider.
He tried to climb the rounded walls, but slid down a few times. It kept him occupied long enough for me to finish my shower, which was all I could ask. I snuck past him when I was done, and went on with my day.
That night, I went to see if -- as I was expecting -- the nimble bugger had escaped and scurried off to some other hiding place in my house. Instead, I found him nestled in the bottom curve of the cover.
Tap.
Nothing.
Tap tap.
Nothing.
Must be dead. I feel kinda bad for him. Regardless, I need to remove him from my shower, ya know. I pull the cover off the wall, and then I could have sworn he raised his weary little head from the slump of despair that he'd fallen into.
GAAACK! Still alive. Slight increase in heart rate again.
But I think -- with a nod to Miracle Max -- he's mostly dead. Still, let's get him outside. He was too exhausted from his little vertical climbing expedition to put up much of a fight, though he did muster the energy to start crawling around the disc, exploring what he was only able to look at all day. I rotated the plastic thingy to keep him on the opposite side, and finally got him outside, where I dropped him off in a lovely woodpile -- just the sort of place a spider might like.
I'm guessing he didn't appreciate all I did for him. But I sure do appreciate my cup of coffee a little more now.
Coffee.
Red Bull.
Mountain Dew.
Spider in the shower.
One morning last week, groggy from staying up too late to watch the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson, I stumble into the shower as usual. Start the water, throw the towel over the shower rod (I have this thing about having water on my face and not being able to dry it off), hop in, wet the hair.....
What's that? Something dark at the top of the wall in front of me. I don't have my contacts in or my glasses on, so I can't quite tell. I squint, and decide it's a moth. I go to reach for the shampoo bottle and it drops down on an invisible string. Moths don't spin webs, so logically, it's not a moth.
GAAACK! There's a spider in my shower!!!! One big enough for my Mr. Magoo eyes to see on their own. And thus starts the heart racing, the trying-not-to-hyperventilate breathing. The muffled screaming (as if a spider will hear me scream and decide he'd better leave because he's scaring me? Shyeah.).
He hangs out, on a line about 15 inches long -- which puts him just above eye level. I ponder the options.
I could grab a shampoo bottle and smush him. Eeew. Then -- presuming I have decent aim and he doesn't scurry -- I have spider guts on my wall, as well as on the bottle. Eeew.
I could splash some water on him and try to wash him down the drain. But -- presuming I have decent aim and he doesn't scurry -- I may have a spider with a good grip at any point in the tub, near my feet (which might look like good climbing walls from that vantage point). And, given the amount of hair of mine that's accumulated on the drain, he might not actually go down. Eeew. Besides, how would I get that much water on him? Well, there's that drain lever cover.
Aha!
The drain lever cover. A marvelous little invention that covers the overflow drain so that you can get another 2 or 3 inches of water in the tub -- which is a HUGE difference. Anyway -- it has suction cups to keep it on the wall, is clear so I can keep an eye on my shower buddy, and aside from the hole on one side (so that you don't really overfill the tub), seems like a perfect Temporary Shower Spider Container.
I retrieve the cover from the opposite corner, keeping an eye on the blur that I know to be the spider for as long as I can. A little water on the tiny suction cups to make sure they stick, a careful aim, aaaand.....WHAM! I've contained me a spider.
He tried to climb the rounded walls, but slid down a few times. It kept him occupied long enough for me to finish my shower, which was all I could ask. I snuck past him when I was done, and went on with my day.
That night, I went to see if -- as I was expecting -- the nimble bugger had escaped and scurried off to some other hiding place in my house. Instead, I found him nestled in the bottom curve of the cover.
Tap.
Nothing.
Tap tap.
Nothing.
Must be dead. I feel kinda bad for him. Regardless, I need to remove him from my shower, ya know. I pull the cover off the wall, and then I could have sworn he raised his weary little head from the slump of despair that he'd fallen into.
GAAACK! Still alive. Slight increase in heart rate again.
But I think -- with a nod to Miracle Max -- he's mostly dead. Still, let's get him outside. He was too exhausted from his little vertical climbing expedition to put up much of a fight, though he did muster the energy to start crawling around the disc, exploring what he was only able to look at all day. I rotated the plastic thingy to keep him on the opposite side, and finally got him outside, where I dropped him off in a lovely woodpile -- just the sort of place a spider might like.
I'm guessing he didn't appreciate all I did for him. But I sure do appreciate my cup of coffee a little more now.
posted by PammyJean at 10:58 pm
4 Comments:
You know my husband kept sneaking up on me yesterday and scaring me, I should have tried the suction cup thingy on him...
I hear your anxiety! I had a similiar situation occur shortly after moving into my current residence only the bug (wasn't a spider but honestly I didn't pause long enough to figure out what it was!), was on my bath sponge thingy! ACK!!
The only good spider is a dead spider. 'Nough said.
A tiny spider, sheesh. Try a big frog, the size of your hands with fingers splayed out. Or the ever fun beach crabs of various sizes. Or my favorite: the mysterious large drowning bug that you figure would terrify you if ou helped turn it over, nonetheles you ignore it in hopes it does die. Welcome to my jungle shower in Costa Rica. Not all of these critters happened on the same day, but everyday was an adventure.
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