Of Spiders and Star Trek

Living on the ground level of an apartment complex has it's ups and downs. Well, it just mostly has it's downs. The only 'up' is that I don't have to drag my lazy butt up any stairs. The 'downs' are as follows: hearing everything going on upstairs, hearing everything going on downstairs in the parking garage, being more vulnerable to theft since we're quicker/easier to get to, and last but not least, the spiders.

I just killed one now, actually. It was making a beeline for my Star Trek poster as if thinking, "If I'm on it, you can't squish me!"

Think again, dick.

He never got close. Until I have children, my instinctive maternal protectiveness is spent on my belongings. I almost felt like Mrs. Weasley in the last Harry Potter installment, "Not my poster, you bitch!"

The poor guy was probably just looking for his buddies I've been picking off. But hey, they deserve it for being stupid. My sister once waxed philosophical, as she often does, "If I were a bug I would go see the world! Go live somewhere cool. I would have no responsibilities! Why would I want to live in someone's bathroom or under their bed?"

And, of course, it doesn't help that spiders terrify me. I get it from my dad, I think. I'm not as bad as he is, though. He won't get near enough to even kill a spider if he can't help it. Whereas I can't wait for the opportunity to remove one of those beasts from the Earth. I still like to keep my distance though. My weapon of choice has and always shall be bug spray or a fly swatter.

They're everywhere in Southern California, so you'd think I would be used to them. But nooo. If anything it seems to have made me that much more aware of them. My grandma once told me that she's learned to not fear spiders through accepting that "they're just there", and while they can be harmful, most aren't. She told me this as she hunted for a spider I had spotted with her bare hands. The woman is a warrior. Or she's nuts.