506 Key Holders: Spiderwomen

I really love living on my own in my very own apartment, with my very own bed and very own kitchen and very own keys. The past few days have reminded me that life in the real world is not always all late nights with a beer and loud music, getting mail addressed to me and my own address, and lounging around in my underwear. Therefore, I have begun this new section of my blog: 506 Key Holders: The Adventures of an Apartment Newbie.

Here's my first entry. Soon I'll figure out how to get it in a separate tag (help?).

The most ridiculous ordeal just went down a few minutes ago. Hands down. THE most ridiculous. So, my roommate and I just got home from a BBQ with neighbors. As we are standing in our kitchen (which is orange, by the way!), I look up and see two GINORMOUS spiders chilling on the ceiling. I'm talking e-freaking-normous. Like, with its legs spread out, the size of a ... vanilla wafer. Yeah. They were the same kind of spider that we found getting comfy in our bathtub a few days earlier, which had taken much effort (and assistance from our manly man friends) to eliminate. They wouldn't drown!! Anyways. My roommate and I, both TERRIFIED of spiders, froze. One spider was moving at a fairly decent pace (for a spider, anyway), exploring the way around our stucco cieling. The other one was dead still. But not dead, unfortunately. It was the worst situation. Especially since the manly-man friends/neighbors we could call on to help us with this dilemma were all still at said BBQ. Hence, after the initial freak out, my roommate and I stand in the doorway to our kitchen, which is the farthest from the spiders we could be and still see them, for 30 minutes. Yeah, a whole half an hour watching them and assessing the situation and entertaining our options, all while stomach churning in our most-girly squeamishness. At one point we sprint downstairs to see if the neighbors have gotten home yet, to no avail.

After extended discussion, strategy, and practice, we decide on the swiffer method:

1) bring flat part of swiffer head to the ceiling, close to target

2) flatten swiffer to the ceiling and determine best position for ideal leverage and strength in squishing

3) slowly approach and then shadow target

4) press, press, press. squish like hell.

... and somehow I get the guts to carry out the mission. As moral support, my roommate begins to tell me stories about the spiders. I learn that the first spider target, the one who is crawling around, his name is Rupert. He is aged and lived a good life, he loves a good read, and has a dog named Periwinkle who he likes to take on walks in the park. One might find it odd to see a spider walking a dog, she says, but Rupert was one of a kind. He's also going blind. His lover and life-long companian, was sleepy Wanda.. Wanda had a rough childhood and therefore has never slept well, so she was prescribed sleeping pills later in life. She used to run a weaving business until she retired to spend more time with Rupert and Periwinkle. They were great lovers and they always dreamed of dying together. And tonight, they did.

Rupert went first, and quickly and painlessly. Wanda slept through the pressing-the-life-out-of-her-lover, but she was not so lucky in the quickness of her exit. She actually landed on our kitchen counter, face down with legs spread, not dead, but wounded. At the biggest length I could muster I swept her onto the floor and squished with the now coined dance/spider-killing move "the sweep and squish." It's kind of like the motion of sauteeing. Anyway, once they were dead together, with shaky hands we swept them onto a piece of paper and fed them to the birds in the cider shoot (I'll get to that in the next entry).

Now, in the aftermath as I cool down, my stomach is cramping from the muscles tensing up. It was that intense.

If anyone had heard/seen this, it was the most unusual thing. My roommate told fabulous stories about Rupert & Wanda's life together, which oddly comforted me as I practiced and eventually carried out my swiffer-squish, and we screamd Bloody Mary. The whole thing took over 45 minutes. For two spiders. Absurd. Though after all that time I was even getting fond of our friends as I squished the life out of them. RIP Rupert & Wanda.