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