when i moved into my old, old, big, big HOUSE nearly 20 years ago? It had been taken over by spiders and mice and rats. The mice and rats, while an annoyance? caused me no fear. The spiders? Erm…
you wold have to understand? There were webs on WEBS in the basement, the end result of some kind of sick spider breeding program left go under the radar for far too long… all 3 full basements of this house were covered and inundated… the spiders marched around the house like they owned it, which they kind of did.
i TRIED the sprays? i sprayed “ten times as much” as was safe on the package? STILL wasnt killing them, it was just p!$$ing them off. I tried the bug bombs? I bought eh most expensive and biggest, and put one in each and every room… ran outside? to watch the stream from each one harmlessly going RIGHT for the old windows, doing “nothing”.
the over used sprays? burned my eyes and nose RAW and the spiders were still alive. it was worse on me than it was on them…
I knew what had to be done. I had to go, and CARRY the fight into the very HEART of the enemy’s lair itself, and squish and stomp them MANUALLY.
I put a hoodie on? and taped gloves to the wrists of the hoodie. i taped the hoodie to the jeans, and the jeans to the workboots… i pull the big hoodie into a small opening for my face, and goggles over the little of my eyes and nose showing… I was ready.
my (ex)wife is standing there looking at me like i am nuts, but, when i offered HER to go in? she declined… riiiight. I got all worked up and charged in… killed a bunch of webs and spiders, couple “runs” worth of heavily coated floorboards… and ran OUT screaming like a girl scout…
“get em offf! get em OFFFFFFF!!!”
and the ex wife wiped them off… wiped me off… I went back in for a few minutes, and cam running out again… “get em offff!!!”
she said ” uh, theres none ON you, dear…”
“get em off ANYWAYS!!! get em off anyways!!!”
(she wiped off imaginary spiders all over me that didnt exist… so i could go back in, yelling at the spiders, laughing like a maniac…)
=
so, going to extremes? I WON… well sort of. True, i only had to kill a few stray spiders for a little while, then i saw NONE, yes technically i had “won”. But, what have i won?
i was now over run by crickets (not scary, fun at first but…. annoying) and over-run by these little damp bugs? that looked like false centipedes. they vary in size from tiny to gigantic…
the CURE was worse then the DISEASE…
my enemy’s enemy? is my friend… i made peace with a FEW spiders. they will not leave a web, so, a few webs are allowed to exist in a few places. After 20 years of “work”? I am able to handle a FEW small spiders, not most of them, mind you, but… i impressed a few friends showing off how i can pick some of them up (not many)
i have NOW decided? conquering all fears? is impossible… i now allow myself ONE rational fear… spiders.