Thursday, April 30th 2009

As April comes to a close I feel without the slightest bit of doubt that this will go down as the worst April in my spider-fearing memory. Not only was this month filled with spider sightings, but the density in which I've seen spiders recently makes me worry that the summer months will be two or three-fold what I'm seeing now.

I get the feeling you guys think this is a joke. This isn't funny. It's not funny that I have to check the ceiling two or three times while I'm in a room. It's not hilarious when my spider sense goes off and lo and behold there one is next to my foot. This is real life. They should show this shit on SpikeTV.

Which brings me to the actual post. This last week has been so saturated with spiders that they're calling it "The Week" ("they" aren't very creative). I'm gonna do things a little bit differently this time around because what we've got are spider sightings spread out over about 4 days, and I'm going to break them up into two groups.

Group 1: Alex's Apartment

Alexander Case is the bass player for my band, and also a good friend. This weekend the band and I decided to spend the night at his apartment in Indianapolis as it would save us time and gas for our show the next day in Illinois. Now I've stayed there before, and outside of the stupid dog that humps everything and slobbers on more, it's a nice pad. Or, it WAS a nice pad.

Early morning. BOOM. Spider on Annie's blanket.
Shower time. BOOM. Spider in the tub.
Early afternoon. BOOM. Spider on the wall.
Afternoon. BOOM. Spider on the wall part 2.

Now, you might think that's a lot of BOOMs. But John Madden and I both agree that it's the correct amount. Guys, that's FOUR spiders in about a six hour span. At that rate we're looking at 16 spiders a day, 112 spiders a week, 5840 spiders a year (5856 if it's a leap year), and 438,300 over the course of the average lifetime. Now I know that seems impossible, but anything is possible with god, and everything is creepy with spiders.


Group 2: Harmon St. Kitchen

There's a lot of controversy over the worst possible place to see a spider. My thought has always been while driving a car, but a lot of people say it's the kitchen. I've gotta say, after the past few days I'm looking to switch my opinion (something I only do once or twice a day). Two nights ago I was having a nice conversation with my roommate Michael in our kitchen when all of a sudden I saw his eyes light up as he looked towards the ceiling above me. It was like I was in a movie. Slow motion. His mouth started to form "spi-", then the camera cut to me. My head was shaking, my mouth clearly screaming "NOOOOOOO". It cuts back to him. "-der". All hell breaks loose. He kills the spider with my brand new box of pancake mix. Yuck.



To commemorate the death I made a batch of pancakes (with white chocolate chips). So good. I was sitting at the kitchen table eating them when I remembered the movie I watched earlier starring Michael and Stephen. I hated that movie. I looked up to the ceiling in remembrance and OH GOD ANOTHER ONE. The same exact kind too. Clear, long legs that they keep close to their body, and fast. I grabbed a box of Special K with red berries (GROSS) and smashed it. If you would've been standing in the next room it would've sounded like someone was PPKing (punt, pass and kicking) a box of cereal, such was the magnitude of my shaky arm.



So that brings us to tonight. With these sightings fresh in my mind, it was with a cautious heart and attentive mind that I approached my kitchen to get a grapefruit. By the way, I've gotta say I think I'm doing something wrong when it comes to eating grapefruits. 50% of the thing just ends up in a pulpy mess in the bottom of my bowl. My fears were confirmed when I saw a single-strand spider web going from the ceiling light to the top of the refrigerator. That spider was somewhere and I'll be damned if I was going to let it run free. I grabbed the Special K again and carefully made my way around the kitchen. My phone started to vibrate in my pocket and I about hit the ceiling. All of a sudden I spotted it in the top left corner. I slowly approached it, lunged at it with the cereal, and barely hit it! It fell to the floor! Oh my god!!!! Wait...it's lying still. OH MY GOD NO IT'S MOVING. Dead. Fucking dead. I dropped that box of cereal on the spider like Obama dropped his positive message of change on all the po' people in this great country of ours.



Three dead spiders in the kitchen. A fluke, or a sign of things to come? Only time will tell.

Daily Spider Count: 1
Weekly Spider Count: 3
Last Week's Spider Count: 4
Overall Feeling: Scared that I have 9 more nights in this house, glad that I only have 9 more nights in this house.

Monday, April 20th 2009

Taken from Wikipedia: Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom.

What it should have said: Spiders (order WTF) are fire-breathing chelicerate arthropods that have eight legs with visible hair on them, eight eyeballs for no reason, and chelicerae modified into fangs that inject venom into any Stephen in the area.

Friday was like eating a club sandwich with moldy bread. This probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but let me explain. Any time I see or hear about having a chance to eat a club sandwich, I get stoked. They’re delicious, filling, and don’t make me feel sick. Now if you took that sandwich and put it on moldy bread, we’re looking at a whole different situation. What you have there is something amazing (meat-on-meat, lettuce, cheese, dressing, etc) surrounded by items of disgust (moldy bread). Now, how does that apply to my Friday night? It’s simple.

I love dancing. Because of this I decided to throw a dance party at my house. This dance party is something that is awesome. The only problem was that a spider approached me both before AND after the dance party, giving you a metaphorical moldy sandwich.

The first encounter was straight out of one my nightmares. I was cleaning the house, getting ready for guests. I live with people who don’t know how to put DVDs and video games away when they’re done using them, so I had a stack of discs that I was putting into cases. I was rummaging through a big bin of cases when I lifted up Madden ’03 (why do I still even have that?) only to find a spider moving all eight of it’s legs so fast that they made that little circle you see when the roadrunner is being chased by coyote. My roommate Austin was around so I made him kill it while I watched to make sure it was actually dead. This little nugget was squirming all over the cases and video game controllers and I wanted nothing to do with it. Here it is. Prepare to get goosebumps.



(That is NOT my hand)

So after that incident I was on edge, but the most excellent dance party that occurred shortly after took care of it. Little did I know that spiders like to dance as well. After all the guests had gone home I was hanging out with my friend Tulo in my kitchen. We were just standing around, reminiscing on how incredible we both are. I went to get something out of my fridge when lo and behold a spider was spotted RUNNING down the wall to the left of my fridge. Now, most of the time when I see spiders they are either just chillin' out or contained by some sort of bin (like the one we saw earlier). This one was full on sprinting and I had to act fast. There was no time for pictures as I picked something (no clue) out of the garbage and slammed it up against the wall. Guys, I seriously acted so fast that it could have been Michael Johnson (does anyone even remember him?) in spider form and I still would’ve slaughtered it. I know there’s no picture for this one, but you can ask Tulo and he will tell you it happened. If you think about it, it’s actually better than a picture because a picture can be photoshopped. The good word of Tulo can’t.

Daily Spider Count: 2
Weekly Spider Count: 2
Overall Feeling: Only one more month left in this hell hole

Sunday, March 22nd 2009

It's a rare occasion when I'm upset to be back amongst family and friends, but in this case I regret to inform you that I've returned. Warmer weather is upon us and the spiders are slowly making their way out of their eggs, or whatever it is they grow up in. The pits of hell have re-opened and arachnids are once again among us. It's a time of confusion as warmer weather brings about feelings of a child-like joy, and spiders bring with them feelings of WTF! Today was a day in which I experienced both (or bolth if you talk like me).

I traveled with my roommate to see his band play a show in Wabash, IN. It was a great time, and I got to see some old friends. What I didn't realize was that I was also going to see some old enemies too. After his band played, Michael and I walked to a nearby gas station. On the walk I had a turd that was just dying to go for a swim, and you already know where I was headed as soon as I walked in the Speedway. I was minding my own business and shedding some excess weight when here comes a spider, dangling from it's web next to the wall.



I instantly clenched up and went over a few options in my head.

Option 1: I ignore the fact that I'm pooping, get up and get a paper towel, and squish it.
Option 2: I ball up some toilet paper (gas station toilet paper is so thin it's basically non-existent) and squish it, with a good chance that I'm going to feel it being squished.
Option 3: I take off a shoe and slam it.
Option 4: I wait until I'm done and take care of it then.

Option 4 was so out of the question that it left my mind as quickly as it entered, and I was stuck with three options. I didn't want to get messy, so option 1 disappeared. I also didn't want to feel a spider being crushed because that will cause me to vomit, and then more of a mess will be caused than in option 1. Option 3 really had no downside besides me not wanting to get athlete's foot from the gas station bathroom floor, so I took of my shoe and beat that spider up like we were in high school and he just dissed my girlfriend.

Later that night after the show we returned home. Harmon Street has been a tranquil place lately, and I've enjoyed the carefree atmosphere that has been created by a spider free life. My orange juice tastes sweeter, my showers feel warmer, and I wake up feeling more rejuvenated than ever before. Now I feel like my summer break is over, and school is back in session. I walked into the bathroom to wash my hands and get my number 1 on. After I flushed our broken toilet I turned to face the sink and lo and behold a medium sized clear spider was running right next to it. I panicked and didn't move for a few seconds. I started looking at my weapon options: soap bottles, shaving cream cans, toothbrushes, nothing with a hard, flat surface. Finally I landed on a roll of toilet paper which, ideally, isn't my number one choice, but I wasn't left with many options. My arm looked like a character from season 1 of Home Movies, and it didn't feel much better. I slowly moved towards the quarter-sized beast and then dropped the roll of TP on it like a ton of bricks. No one was in the house, so a battle cry may or may not have been yelled. I wasn't about to risk taking a picture of it while it was alive, so here it is after I had my way with it.



If today was a hint of the days ahead, bring on winter again.

Daily Spider Count: 2
Weekly Spider Count: 2
Overall Feeling: In the mean time, skip spring time

Monday, January 12th 2009

Happy new year Spider Count fans! I'm sure you've noticed that I've been absent for quite some time. As usual, the reason is simple. Spiders simply haven't been showing their faces around me lately. The reason for THAT is obvious. The past 50+ years in America we've witnessed incredible leaps and bounds in the area of technology. If that wasn't enough, the past 10 years you could say those "leaps and bounds" have increased exponentially. You might be asking yourself, "how does this relate to you not seeing spiders?" and to that I might respond, "you're one of those people who ask questions about what is going to happen in a movie, aren't you?" Shut up and pay attention.

Technology is spreading like a wildfire, that I've made clear. What I haven't touched on yet is that technology is no longer just benefiting humans. We use technology to help improve the lives of animals, plants, and the earth in general. Surgeries are available for cats and dogs, full body scans are being done on race horses, and so on and so forth. Animals benefit from technology, and it would be foolish of me to assume that spiders don't take advantage of the technological opportunities set forth in front of them. That famous saying, "it only takes a spark to get a fire going" rings ever so true in my conquest to banish all forms of arachnids from the planet. I imagine a few spiders got bored one day and decided to hop on the webs of another kind. The webs that are available WORLDWIDE. These little turds, not so different from humans, had egos and Googled themselves. Obviously, not having a name, they just typed in "spider". Even more obviously, my blog (having received national acclaim) was the first hit. They read through it a few times and decided they wanted to have absolutely nothing to do with me. Even more than avoiding me, they took it upon themselves to warn their brethren of me, and now I have single-handedly raised the spider world's threat level to a hearty orange; one step away from the highest level possible, red. I credit my straight-forward reporting. I never back down from posting pictures, regardless of how gruesome or creepy they may be. A dead spider carcass that has been smashed by a DVD case? Post it. A living spider just seconds away from it's inexorable death? Post it. It's this kind of journalism that creates a buzz, and it has obviously worked in my favor.

NOW. With that all being said, this week has been a wake up call of sorts. Along with the electronic advancements comes the downfall; shorter attention spans. We live in a world chock full of gadgets and fast paced action, and therefore have adopted a "what have you done for me lately?" attitude. An NFL team can win 11 straight games to start off a season, but as soon as they drop 2 in a row fans are calling for heads to roll. The same can be applied to my blog. For a while there the first thing on a spider's mind before entering a room was my blog. "Is Stephen in there?" they would think. If I was, they simply detoured their route and carried on their way, or waited for me to leave before entering. A few months went by without me blogging though, and things like food and fun have come before safety. Spiders know of me and still shudder when my name is mentioned, but I'm no longer a hot topic. I've had my 15 minutes of fame in their mind.

Well I'm here for 15 more.

On Wednesday my good friend Melissa and I were hanging out in my room. It was late at night and being the classy guy that I am I had a candle burning and acting as the sole light source. I was sitting at my desk minding my own business when something caught my eye. I knew this feeling. I wanted to believe that it was just the candle light flickering and causing moving shadows, but the other side of my brain wouldn't let me believe it for long. I looked up and sure enough there was a small black spider darting across my wall, just below eye level. Unbelievable. Was I scared? Absolutely, but I had a guest present so I had to play it cool. The spider stopped and I saw my chance to grab my camera. I tried taking a few pictures but they came out blurry. This was the best one:



After taking a few pictures I think something snapped in this blockhead's brain, and he realized who I was. By then it was too late. I had him cornered. With two tissues in hand I extended my arm and smashed him up against the wall. You could've set a 5 pound weight on my arm and it would've collapsed, so liquid-like was it's state. That didn't matter though, because the spider was dead and once again I reigned victorious.

So all is good, right? A minor fluke in the system, but you'll have that every once in a while. I figured things would go back to being normal again and it would be months before my next spider sighting. I couldn't have been more incorrect.

A few days later some friends and I arrived at home around 4:30 in the AM after a show in Cincinnati. I had to pee like nobody's business, so I headed to the latrine, my friend Dave's favorite word for a "bathroom". It was very early in the morning, so naturally I was groggy. Imagine what a wake up call I received when this cretin crawled into my line of vision!



What a totally unnecessary sight to behold! I acted quickly to take out my cell phone and snap a picture. After I took the picture, I looked at it and had to turn my head sideways. This was because I felt a small amount of vomit building up in my stomach, and rather than throw up in a toilet with a spider inches from my face, I was preparing to spew in the bathtub. In the few seconds that I thought I might ruminate, this spider parried to the ground making itself almost invisible. I cried for help. Erik was quick to respond, and got all up in that spider's business. He stomped it into the fake tile and Mother Earth breathed a small but noticeable sigh of relief. (BTW, some people say that spiders are necessary and that they control the insect population. To this I cry out an infinite number of shenanigans.)

Daily Spider Count: 0
Weekly Spider Count: 0 (but 2 last week)
Overall Feeling: A little feeling-y

Saturday, November 15th 2008

Hey guys, Stephen here. I haven't seen any spiders since my last update and so my life has been really awesome. I've basically just been throwing parties at Harmon St. to celebrate this occasion, so sucks for you if you haven't been invited because they've been real ragers. But setting my killer hangover aside for a second, let me tell you about one of the times in my life that I'm most proud of. This story involves me stepping out of character for a couple moments, so bear with me.

It was Cornerstone 2006. Every year we went to Cornerstone beginning in 2004, our good friend John Klotz came along with us. Now, if you thought I was scared of spiders, then you haven't seen anything. In order to attend Cornerstone, Klotz would have to buy a can of spider killing spray. The only problem with this spray was it had a picture of a spider on it! So of course, in order for him to buy it, the picture had to be scratched off first. That is just giving you an idea of how scared of spiders this guy is.
So I've never really had a problem with daddy long-legs. They aren't really spiders, they are slow, and for some reason they've never bugged me. They still scare the shit out of Klotz though. So at Cornerstone I found a big fat daddy long-leg creature, picked it up, and walked up behind him. Holding the bug right beside his head I said, "Klotz bro."

"Fuck you bro!" and he immediately ran away.

It was awesome.

Winter is soon to be upon us and if I were a spider there is only one place I would want to be in the winter, and that is inside a house. I hope that I think the exact opposite of how a spider thinks, and the spiders play outside in the snow all winter because it's already bad enough that I'm going to be cold. I don't want to have to see spiders too.

Daily Spider Count: 0
Weekly Spider Count: 0
Overall Feeling: Yeah bro

Tuesday, October 28th 2008

Hey guys! And by guys I mean Liz, Shawn, Tulo, Lucas, and maybe Laura by way of Liz's recommendation. This last tour was awesome, and luckily the only spider encounter I heard of was while I was in the bathroom. Apparently a wolf spider lowered itself down over the kitchen table in Wichita, KS. Gross.

Unfortunately, I was welcomed back to Marion in classical Harmon Street fashion. Being on tour, you end up wearing the same clothes a lot, so they get dirty, and naturally when you come home you want to do a load of laundry. This morning that's exactly what I wanted to do, so I went upstairs, gathered all my dirty laundry up, and took the basket towards the bathroom to get my towel. I set the basket on the floor outside of the bathroom and almost touched with my HAND a spider on the door frame. I don't know if it was frozen because our house is so cold or what, but we both just kind of stared at each other for a few minutes. My camera was right next to me so I snapped this picture of it.

I KNOW RIGHT!? Look at the shape of it's body. It's a little bit long but still thick enough to give it that girth-y look that haunts my dreams. I grabbed the closest thing to me to kill it, which happened to be Robin Williams' "Man Of The Year" which I've never seen, but he's wearing a stupid wig on the cover of it so I think it's better off this way. His face, which used to make people laugh, served a purpose and killed the spider that you see above. Should've quit while you were ahead after Jumanji.

Daily Spider Count: 1
Weekly Spider Count: 1
Overall Feeling: I can see my breath in our house.

Tuesday, October 14th 2008

Guys, I'm really sorry. I know I've been slacking, but I have a few excuses that you probably don't care about.

1. I have a roommate who didn't pay the internet bill, so we no longer have webbies at our house.
2. Spiders have been few and far between at our house.

That being said! Here's a much needed update!

Well about 11 days ago on the morning before we (Rodeo Ruby Love) left for tour, I was about to hop into the shower. It had been a long time since I had seen a spider in the bathroom, so no longer were they on my mind. I wasn't even naked yet, but I was about to get the water running. I stepped towards the bathtub and after I did so I looked down. BIG SPIDER RIGHT BY MY TOE. I screamed for a while, gaining Zack's attention, and sprinted upstairs to get my camera. I ran down as fast as I could and snapped a picture of it. Luckily this gross pile of crap didn't move in that time. I needed something to kill it with because, oh, I forgot to mention I was BARE FOOTED. I grabbed a box of tissues and squished that fart knocker into the fake tile floor. What a scare. Here he is pre-death.

Totally gross right? Well even if you disagree I don't need your approval because that spider is just straight up creepy.

So that was a while ago. I got over it. I moved on. I saw some totally nasty ass spiders on tour, but luckily most of them were outside our van or outside of the houses we were napping in. Hey, if you had to chill with 10 spiders for an hour would you do it? Uh, what? How about...no? Moving right along.

So today. Guys, today. Kyle lurking in the living room. I enter the kitchen. Woah bro, two dead spiders right by the trash can! Totally nasty! I picked up a piece of paper to scoop up their dead bodies and throw them away and OH MY GOSH ONE OF THEM MOVED. It almost gave me a heart attack. WHY would it curl up in a ball if it was still alive. Is that how spiders sleep? How do I not know this? I feel like spiders just close their eyes to sleep and don't curl up their legs. Are they getting cuddly? Spiders don't cuddle. This is stupid, why am I still talking about this? Oh yeah, because if a spider is curled up into a ball it should probably be dead. Anyways, I got totally freaked out and Kyle and Zack just were having a hay day with my fear and told me to move the trash can onto it to kill it! I knew this wouldn't work, I told them this wouldn't work, but they kept telling me to do it, so I did it. I picked up the trash can really quickly and slammed it onto the spider and then vibrated it around on top of it for good measure. Oh look, here's the spider running out from the trash can just like I said! I had to step on it and then it got stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I wanted to vomit. I hate my friends.

See that dead spider next to the living spider? That's what the living spider looked like 10 seconds prior to this picture. SPIDER. YOU WERE CHEATING.

Daily Spider Count: 1
Weekly Spider Count: 1
Overall Feeling: They're back.

Saturday, September 20th 2008

Well still no spiders. That was a hell of a bomb. People are getting pissed but frankly you guys can shove it. I am loving life right now!

The other night our front door was locked and Zack and I had to walk around back to get in. Our yard is so hairy and overgrown that I just knew there had to be a spider lurking nearby. Sure enough when he opened our back door a flood of light washed over our back step and onto the Diet Mountain Dew cans that have been sitting there ever since mid-July. HUMONGOUS HAIRY SPIDER WITH THICK LEGS what's up. That thing was so sick. If I had the famous "John Klotz-Lopez Spider Spray" I would've shot the hell out of it, but I figured it was punishment enough for it to have to drink Diet Mountain Dew. Guys. Diet soda SUCKS. 

Another reason I didn't kill it is because it was on the top of a soda can. Think about that. How are you going to make sure when you drop your foot on that can of soda that your shoe is going to go inside the top rim of the can and not just rest on it? That spider could just duck and turn upside down and as soon as you lift up your foot it's crawling up your shoe and onto your leg. I also thought about kicking a field goal and at least moving the spider further away from our house, but then I thought, "What if this spider sees my foot coming and jumps from the can onto my leg." The end result would be me pulling a Charlie Brown because my legs would turn into Jello and I would fall down mid-kick. The hair on my legs rose up at the thought of that spider being on my leg, so I passed. 

It's a scary thought having that spider be right outside our back door. It's too small to make a noise by knocking, but you can bet if there was a doorbell back there...

...he'd be ringing it.

EPIC

Daily Spider Count: 1

Weekly Spider Count: 1

Overall Feeling: Not using the back door for a month.

Friday, September 12th 2008

Remember that flea bomb I talked about a week ago? Apparently it worked on the spiders, causing this blog to take a forced hiatus. I realize that it's a big bummer for all of you followers, but you guys don't even know how high my self esteem is right now. I actually feel at peace inside my own house. Unfortunately, it didn't kill all the fleas and I still have to kill about 4-5 a day, but they don't bother me as much as arachnids.

So far I have seen a few downsides of living in this house with no spiders.

1. This morning when I went to take a shower I forgot to check the corners of the ceiling for spiders. I'm getting cocky. I think that just because I haven't seen one in 6 days, that they stopped existing. If this keeps up I'll probably have a spider in my hair in a few days due to my laziness.

2. I used to be careful about checking around my feet whenever I was standing still in a room for a while. Spiders can creep up on your feet and then onto your pants pretty quickly when you're motionless, and I used to constantly be aware of this. I need to bring back that acute awareness and keep incorporating it into my daily routines.

Outside of those few flaws, I'm still pretty aware of my surroundings. There's a few marks on my wall where the paint has chipped off, and when it's dark in my room the missing spot of paint can be mistaken for a bug or a spider. I still check them every night before I go to bed to make sure these marks haven't actually turned into a spider.

Daily Spider Count: 0
Weekly Spider Count: 0
Overall Feeling: This could be the first week since I moved in that I haven't seen a spider. Knock on wood, of course.

Friday, September 5th 2008

I bring good news to myself, and bad news to anyone who reads this blog. 

We have fleas in our house. Apparently to some people, fleas > spiders when it comes to their level of annoying. This fallacy has led to the purchase of a Raid Bomb. A Raid Bomb is an object that sits in a room and sprays a lot of poisonous gas into the air, killing bugs such as fleas, spiders, ants, etc. This bomb will be going off tomorrow in the early afternoon. If all goes as planned, our house will temporarily be spider-free, and consequently will become extremely livable and a safe haven for the brand new worry-free Stephen. 

Guys. I really hope this works. 

Daily Spider Count: 0

Weekly Spider Count: 4

Overall Feeling: What's 7 multiplied by 0? The amount of spiders I hope to see next week.

Thursday, September 4th 2008

Double trouble.

I walked into my bathroom this morning to take a shower. Whenever I enter our bathroom now, I always check the four corners of the ceiling to make sure no spiders are hanging out there. That's where they tend to go, is the corners. Looked clear to me, so I had a nice hot shower. As soon as I got out I checked the corners again for safe measure, and then looked right above me in the MIDDLE of the ceiling and saw a spider crawling right above my head. My camera was right outside the bathroom so I snapped a quick picture and then killed it with a box of candy I was eating. It really sucks that I didn't get to finish that candy, but the spider was heading for the door and who knows what kind of shenanigans would've happened if he would've gotten into our living room.

The rest of the day was awesome! I rode my bike a bit, signed up for the new YMCA in Marion, and watched the Giants/Redskins game with Zachary and Dan. Being spider free is so much fun! That was all great until later tonight, I heard Zach yell from downstairs. He then ran up to my room and informed me that the "biggest fucking spider ever" was in his bedroom. I grabbed my camera and all three roommates gathered to witness this. I made Zach move the bookcase the spider was hiding behind, and as soon as he did I saw the most revolting creature with 8-legs that has ever been inside of Harmon St. I grabbed a hardcover book and I felt like I could gather the courage to kill this one, but as soon as I stepped forward I knew I couldn't. Austin took over and approached it. This is what we were dealing with.

Austin inched closer and closer, and finally had the book about 6 inches away from the monster. He slammed the book towards it and the spider seriously almost got away. THAT'S HOW FAST THIS SPIDER WAS. You can tell by looking at it in that picture that this thing could haul ass. It's legs were sticking out from the top of the book and squirming around. They finally stopped. Goliath was dead.

Good luck sleeping tonight, Zach.

Daily Spider Count: 2
Weekly Spider Count: 4
Overall Feeling: THAT WAS JUST IN OUR HOUSE

Wednesday, September 3rd 2008

No spiders today, but I did find this gem on my phone.
I hate Garfield so much. I found this on the ground about a week ago. A wise friend of mine once said "Garfield is worse than spiders. You can kill a spider, but Garfield will be around forever."

Well said Jeff.

Daily Spider Count: 0
Weekly Spider Count: 2
Overall Feeling: There's a flea that is in my room. How am I supposed to feel right now???

Tuesday, September 2nd 2008

Goodbye August, hello September!

Before I jump into the spiders that have found me recently, I would like to explain something. Lately, I've received a few emails saying that I am faking this, or going out of my way to find spiders. What you all don't understand is that I have ALWAYS gone out of my way to find spiders. I HAVE to be assertive in finding and killing spiders, because when I'm not, they will find me first! Do you know what happens when they find me first? Spiders in my clothes, in my hair, on my body somewhere, and a thoroughly freaked out Stephen for the next few minutes. Or hours, depending on the hair/size/amount-of-see-through ratio. So anyways, I live in a spider-infested house, and this is just my medium for coping with it, and somehow making it more livable. Moving on.

I decided to start storing my bike inside the house rather than outside in the garage because my roommates bike was stolen last week, and I'm trying to take every precaution so that it doesn't happen to mine. Upon bringing it in, I started to fix some things that were a little shaky. As soon as I reached down to adjust my handle-bag clip, I knew it was a mistake. A spider got totally weirded out and raced down towards the bottom of the bike. Luckily I had been doing ExpoTV reviews on my bike gear and had my digital camera on hand. Here's the little booger:

It's a really tricky situation when you get a spider on a thin object like a pole or on the corner of a wall, or in this case, the tubing of my bike. My best bet was to grab a towel and smother the entire area that he was on. I did it, and he was soon dead. I'm a little weary about my bike now though...

So I thought that was it for the day. I had stopped thinking about it long enough to forget that it happened. A few hours later, though, I wanted to go down to the diner and get some work done (our internet has been shaky at the house lately). I went to put on my shoes and HOLY SHIT IT'S A SPIDER. My shoes were white, the spider was black, and it ran out from underneath the tongue of my shoe. It started to move across the floor and you'd better believe I was up on my bed. I reached over and grabbed my camera from my desk and took this picture really quickly, and then seconds later dropped my shoe on the spider. LOOK AT THIS THING. Seriously, click on this picture to make it bigger and really inspect the amount of creepy that is going on. I would sleep downstairs but I feel like there's an even greater chance of seeing one on a couch. I'm helpless. I need to get out of this house.

Daily Spider Count: 2

Weekly Spider Count: 2

Overall Feeling: Distraught and exhausted

Friday, August 29th 2008

Hey folks.

It's been a while since I've updated this blog. The reason, however, is not because I haven't seen any spiders. I wish. The reason is because sometimes I get lazy and blog updates that should happen don't happen. BUT! I'm bringing good/bad news. The good news is you get a two-for-one deal today! The bad news is that means I saw more than one spider. I'll start with my Tuesday night experience.

TUESDAY

It was about 11:58 PM ET, and I was talking on the phone to my good friend Melissa. Because it was so late, I was out in the garage so as not to wake up my sleeping family (I was spending a few days at home). We had been on the phone for a good ten minutes, when I looked down next to me only to see this pile of trash:



So naturally I got off the phone to take a picture, which is a really hard thing for me to do. I always have this strong desire to just squash the nugget and move on with my life, but I'm too dedicated to this blog to do that. Can't you tell by my constant updates? So anyways, I got off the phone, got my camera, took a picture and then made his creepy eight eyes, creepy eight legs, and even creepier clear body one squishy mess on my garage step. Mission accomplished, right?

WRONG! After killing that one I glanced down next to the step to see his brother or some weird similar looking relative on the other side! WHAT IF I HADN'T NOTICED THESE GUYS! Well actually, chances are they wouldn't have harmed me or crawled on me, but I'm not in this business to be critically thinking. The only critical thinking I do is to think that it's critical to kill any spider I see, so this spider also had to go. The towel I had used to kill the other spider had it's guts on it, so in no way was I touching that again. I decided to use a red notebook. I held the notebook above the spider, casting both a literal and figurative shadow of doom across it's body, dropped the notebook, stepped on the notebook, picked up the notebook to make sure it was dead, then got grossed out and dropped the notebook again. I probably should've left a note on it saying "dead spider underneath this notebook" but I forgot. Whoops. Here's what the crusty piece of crap looked like:


Daily Spider Count: 2
Weekly Spider Count: 3
Overall Feeling: No sympathy, ever

THURSDAY

I spent the last few days in Fort Wayne, and tonight I returned to my own room in Marion. Upon arrival I set my bags down and then set up my laptop so I could get some work done. After plugging in my laptop I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. I always hate coming into my room after being gone a few days because I feel like the spiders have had a few human-free days to hang out, and maybe they got cocky and invited friends over. That sounds weird, but it makes sense in my head. Anyways, I looked to where I saw the movement and I just caught a glimpse of a little black spider crawling down the wall and out of sight behind my laptop's screen. This was a tough call for me camera-wise, and I'll tell you why:

-Big spiders have a tendency to be slower moving and a little more calm, giving me more time to get my camera without fear of them crawling out of sight.
-Little black spiders, like this one, have a tendency to jump around ANNOYINGLY fast. Hey, guess what? They're also small so they can hide better. Oh and they're also really freaking fast.

I decided to get my camera out of my bag but I kept my eye on it the whole time. I snapped a quick picture and then it started running to the windowsill. If that little piece of crap got to the windowsill it was long gone. It totally could've squeezed into a crack and I would've had to sleep down on the couch tonight. I grabbed a tissue and squished it which is my absolute least favorite thing to do because you can feel it crunch and...barf break. This is making me feel so sick. I'll just post the picture.



Daily Spider Count: 1
Weekly Spider Count: 4
Overall Feeling: GET OUT OF MY ROOM FOREVER

Sunday, August 24th 2008

The only spider I saw today was outside. I was mowing our lawn and there was this weird piece of cardboard under some trees in our backyard and I saw one of those disgusting hairy ones. I was far away from it and I could SEE THE HAIRS. WHY DO SPIDERS NEED HAIR? I mean I'm sure it's there for a reason but it's main result is freaking me the hell out. But! It was outside and I just mowed up the cardboard and (hopefully) the spider too. Now look, I know I said if the spider is outside it doesn't count, but as I'm typing this I realized how big and hairy this one was so I am changing the rules. If you can see hairs growing on the spider it doesn't matter where you see it. That thing is going to haunt you whether it's under a roof or under a tree napping on cardboard. I also wanted to brag about mowing up a spider, because that is easily my best kill so far. I chopped it up with some blades. Let that sink in.

Since I obviously couldn't get a picture of this one, I'm going to just tell you an awful story. In 5th grade one of my classmates (Amber Hickey) brought this jar into class for show and tell. Inside the jar was a spider that she SWALLOWED while she was eating CEREAL. You guys, you don't even know how long it was until I ate cereal again. She felt it bite her throat when she swallowed it, coughed it up, and then FREAKING PUT IT IN A JAR. OK, I'm sorry, but if I just coughed up a spider that bit the inside of my throat, my first reaction isn't, "I should really get a jar and keep this thing around for a bit." My first reaction is turning the dining room table upside down on top of the spider then probably passing out. To this day, when I'm eating cereal and I remember that story, it's really hard and un-satisfying for me to finish my meal.

Daily Spider Count (after new rules take effect): 1
Weekly Spider Count: 1
Overall Feeling: CAPS LOCK HAPPY

Saturday, August 23rd 2008

Look at this picture:

What a normal picture! Just two guys playing some tunes! Let's get a little closer:

Just a dude playing the drums; nothing special, right? Wrong. If you zoom in on the picture and look up in the corner behind his head this is what you see:

As soon as I walked into the room today I knew something was wrong. I think I can feel spiders now. Luckily, this little guy was small and totally wimpy because all I did was uppercut his frail body right into the ceiling and he was toast. It's like I wasn't even scared to touch him with my bare hand because I knew he was so fragile and inutile. I usually refuse to touch spiders but this one just made me laugh. Nice try spider. Maybe in your next life you will come back as something WORTH MY TIME.

Daily Spider Count: 1
Weekly Spider Count: 5
Overall Feeling: Confident with a hint of cocky...could be my downfall shortly, will keep you posted

Friday, August 22nd 2008

Today was a good day, mainly because I came in contact with no spiders. However, that doesn't mean that spiders weren't on my mind. I was thinking about it, and I realized one of the worst phrases in the English language is, "Dude, there's a spider on you." Let me break it down.

-The first word of this sentence, "Dude" brings about an excited, almost effervescent feeling. Very few sentences start off with "Dude" and are followed by disappointing news; at least in my life.
-The sentence in itself is extremely abstract. There's a spider on me? Terrible news! But the least you could have done was say, "There is a spider on your lower back" or "There is a spider crawling on your left sleeve." When you give such a vague statement, my first reaction is to jump around and slap all parts of my body as fast as I can. So now not only do I have a spider on me, but I look like a fool in front of what could be tens of people.
-THIS IS NOT A SENTENCE TO TAKE LIGHTLY. When someone tells you there is a spider on you, you don't have time to pause and think, "Holy crap what if my friend is joking and there really isn't a spider on me!" This leads to it's abuse. People like to say it to me when it holds no truth. This sentence could be said to me 20 times in one day and on the 20th time I would still react the same way, regardless of there actually being a spider on me the previous 19 times.

I think I've made myself pretty clear.

-Don't start off with "Dude"
-Give an exact location
-NO JOKES

Daily Spider Count: 0
Weekly Spider Count: 4
Overall Feeling: Aggravated, but not sure why

Thursday, August 21st 2008

When I started this blog I knew I would be "lucky" if I ran into at least one spider on a daily basis, and that most days would be spider free. I also knew there would be days where I saw more than one spider (for example, the day in late June when I killed 5 spiders in my basement in as many minutes). Today was the latter.

Let me start off by saying I have no job right now, allowing me to wake up whenever I please. I rolled out of bed around 3pm to take a shower (for what reason, I don't know), and as soon as I walked into the bathroom it was game time. Two spiders up in the corner of the bathroom. This was obviously a HUGE no-no, so after assessing the whole situation I decided I had enough time to get my camera because they didn't seem to be going anywhere. I got my digital camera and snapped a picture.

After I took this picture the little one started flying all over the ceiling and I freaked out, realized I hadn't prepared for that reaction, and had NO GOOD OBJECT available to kill it with. Shampoo bottles, soap containers, toothbrushes...get serious. I need something that is thick and has a big flat surface. I stepped out of the bathroom and found a Vonnegut book (Bluebeard) and quickly killed it. Vonnegut would be so proud. Next was the big one, which had since moved into the corner of the ceiling. This was a little tougher because I had to perfectly dig the corner of the book into the corner of the ceiling, and it was a little hard to reach. I tried and failed!!! The spider fell to the floor!!! You have no idea how fast my feet were in the air when that happened. Sitting on the sink, I peeked behind the toilet to see where it went. I soon saw the big creeper climbing up the wall back to it's little corner. Vonnegut soon became 2/2, and our bathroom became (visibly) spider-free.

I was kind of freaked out because there were 2 spiders in one little area, and that's double the creepy. However, I soon realized that that's a GOOD thing. In fact, I wish every spider in my house would go to the same spot that way I could just drop a big box on them, shut down this blog, and live without the threat of spiders crawling on my face while I sleep.

You may be wondering why I kill the spiders instead of setting them free outside. So many reasons.

-Spiders don't know you're trying to set them free. They aren't going to be nice to you while you do it so there's still a chance they will bite you/crawl up your arm.

-I have a big, curly head of hair. If I'm showering/pooping/peeing and a spider drops into my hair, I probably won't find it for a really long time.

-The spider obviously liked it indoors, so if I put it outside how do I know it won't do a u-turn and come right back in?

-GUYS. THEY'RE JUST SPIDERS.

Daily Spider Count: 2

Weekly Spider Count: 4

Overall Feeling: A little nervous but also a little powerful

Wednesday, August 20th 2008

Spiders love food. Or rather, they love it when I am eating food.

My first spider of the day came around 6pm. I had just made myself a bagel sandwich (cream cheese and ham in the middle), and I was in the middle of enjoying it while watching an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm in our living room. Lo and behold, a movement catches my eye. I see the spider moving towards the bathroom, so I grabbed a jewel CD case and pressed it flat side down on top of the spider. This obviously wasn't going to be enough pressure to kill it, and I knew that. I quickly picked up the case and dug the corner of it into the spider's body, essentially killing it. I obviously didn't have a chance to take a picture of it alive, so here it is dead.


Time passes, and 11pm comes around. I'm hungry again. The bagel sandwich was a winner earlier, so why try to fix something that isn't broken. Is it broke or broken? Anyways. In the kitchen, at the toaster waiting for my bagels to pop up. I walked over to the table where my orange juice was sitting to take a sip, and on my way I noticed a spider underneath the table. The same table that I was JUST STANDING BY FOR AT LEAST ONE MINUTE. My weapon of choice this time was a box of rice. I was tempted to throw the whole box away, but it was still good so I just wiped the spider guts off onto a plastic bag. Here are it's contents.


Daily Spider Count: 2
Weekly Spider Count: 2
Overall Feeling: Down but not out

Introduction

It seems like every time I'm talking to someone on the phone, I encounter a spider. It also seems that any time I'm getting ready to eat, or going to the bathroom, or taking a shower, I encounter a spider.

I'm terrified of spiders.

I created this blog to keep track of all the spiders I come across on a daily basis. I'll keep daily tallies, and then at the end of the week I'll figure out how many spiders I came across during that weekly time period.

Rules:

-Spiders must be indoors (the only exception to this rule being if a spider is crawling on me while I'm outside)
-Must be the first time seeing this spider (example: I see a spider at 1pm and it gets away from me before I can kill it. I see the same spider at 2pm and successfully kill it. This counts as 1 (one) spider sighting)
-Anyone can see the spider first, and notify me of it. As long as there is a spider in my presence in an indoor setting, I am encountering it.
-Week starts Sunday morning at 12:00am and ends Saturday night at 11:59pm.



I will try to take pictures of the spiders with my phone or camera, but I can't always promise that will happen. My first goal is to kill the spider. My second goal is to document it.


Here's to hoping every weekly tally is 0.