If I could talk to spiders...

"Courage is being scared to death...and saddling up anyway."--John Wayne

For reasons such as hairy bodies, way too many eyes, their creepy skulking walk, and the terror they instill in millions of people, I really don't like spiders. They are horrifying on every level to me. Yes I know they are great for the ecosystem and eat bugs I don't want in my house, but do they have to do the following things? Repeatedly?

1. Creep up on me in the shower and make me slip and almost die

2. Hide in places where I will put my hands and not notice them until I am 2mm away from touching them

3. Appear in my bathroom and walk in a hasty manner towards me when I am indisposed on the toilet and unable to move.

4. Show themselves to me right as I am going to bed and then disappear so I have nightmares and constantly think I'm being crawled on by said creepy creature.

5. Stare and unexpectedly launch themselves at me then retreat like it's a game.

For those poor people who know what I am talking about...I'm sorry. For those of you laughing at our pain... go away. It's scary, irrational, and very traumatic.

However, I feel like this could all be changed positively. What if we could talk to spiders? It would be so much better. It would be more like having a super awkward friend that doesn't know how to interact socially instead of a serial killer hanging out in your home.

Here's how I imagine it would go in the above situations.

1. Spider: HEEEEEEEEYYYYYY man I'm glad you turned the shower on I need to rinse off.

Me: WOAH there... this is really a one person job. No offense, but get out.

Spider: How about I just stay in this corner and soak up the steam. I promise I won't be creepy

Me: Okay but can you scoot over? I don't think you want to get swept into the water and drown.

Spider: Thanks for looking out for me. Have a great shower.

See? So much more civilized than the usual " OH &^%^%##$#^&**()(%$#$#%^ SPIDER HOW DO I DROWN IT WITHOUT IT GOING BY MY FEET? Okay I'll just stand on the edges and hope I don't sli.. oh goodness I slipped... where's the spider? Ew it's watching me. What a creep. I hope it doesn't come closer. I don't want to take a shower while watching it the whole time...

2. Me: I'm just going to reach into this bucket to get a sponge to wash my car.. OH GOD what is that?

Spider: Hey there. I'm just guarding the sponges from other bugs you don't like. Sorry if I scared you.

Me: How kind of you! Can you move over to the other sponge so I can use this one? Thanks

Spider: No problem

Me: I hope you catch plenty of food you faithful guardian of sponges. You're awesome.

Instead of this happening I usually scream and run a few feet away, look around for something long enough to smack the spider without fear of it jumping on me or running right at me immediately.

3. Me: Yay! Time to read this magazine

Spider: HEY! How's it going. That looks cool! Can I read it too?

Me: Hey man. Look this is sort of a personal moment in case you didn't notice...

Spider: Woah sorry I had no idea.

Me: No worries. I'll leave the magazine on the floor so you can read it later.

Spider: You're the best human ever.

In reality this is a terrifying event. Being trapped while being vulnerable on a toilet is never graceful or fun. It's humiliating and horrifying. There's never anything adequate to whack a spider with and there is always the fear it will crawl up the toilet and onto you while you're immobile. Putting your feet up and waving a magazine around like a crazy person while spraying febreeze like it's a bug killer is usually the scenario that happens. Inner screaming is common as well.

4. Me: Time for bed! I'm so tired! OH GOD IS THAT A SPIDER? *wide awake*

Spider: Hey! It's okay. I just wanted to escort you to bed. I ate a mean looking bug earlier and wanted to make sure you were safe.

Me: Well I feel like a jerk. It's okay. Hey... where did you go?

Spider: Sorry had to take care of another bug who was acting out. Want a bedtime story?

Me: Yeah that would be great. Thanks for protecting me. Just don't come on my bed...

Spider: No it's cool. That's your space.

This usually goes something like this: SPIDER. WHAT DO I DO. DAAAAAAAAAAD. HELP. HELP HELP HELP. THERE IS A SPIDER. there was a spider... NOOOOOO where did it go? It conveniently reveals itself after every has gone to bed grumpy that I woke them up for an invisible spider.

5. Me: I'm just going to walk down this hallway.. AHH what the heck?

Spider: HEY. Don't come down here it's not safe.

Me: Okay thanks for letting me know, but you didn't have to keep jumping at me. It's scary.

Spider: Sorry, but I know how much you hate cockroaches and there's a massive one over here. My brother is fighting him, but it's getting intense. Stay back.

Me: Alright I will. I appreciate the help.

If we could communicate with the things that terrify us I feel like the world would be a much less scary place. Or we could at least here them coming and voice our fears and angry rants to them instead of looking like we're nuts by jumping around and avoiding spiders and throwing random inanimate objects at tiny creatures that it makes no sense to fear... I'm very guilty of this and I'm sure random people get a good laugh at my expense. It's just like watching people fend of flies coming at their faces or people waving off bees. It looks like they are fighting invisible beings from a distance, but up close they are waging an intense war. Be nice to these people.




PS. This has nothing to do with spiders, but I wanted to share just how dedicated I am to writing this blog. My previous post about things that are acceptable to do as cats, but not as humans is very relevant right now. I am at Will's house again with the night terror herself, Natasha (the cat). She has been "helping" me write this post and just now decided to walk all over my computer as I was typing and then proceeded to EAT my audition lines for a film. She then had the nerve to FART in my FACE and then stare at me until I smelled it. This cat has it out for me...She's still eating my papers...

"When you're scared, when you're hanging on, when life is hurting you, then you're going to see what you're really made of."--Sylvester Stallone

Grown Man vs Bat

"But I love being scared. I think you're brave only when you do things that scare you." --Ginnifer Goodwin

There comes a time in every man's life when he must defend himself against vicious creatures of the wild. Most people expect to find these creatures outside of their homes. The most terrifying and effective creature attacks are ones that come from within our comfort zones. These are particularly effective when coming from your clothes rack as you prepare for bed. This creature, which happens to be a bat, knew this and also knew that this man, we shall call him Bob, was absolutely horrified of bats and would turn into a 5 year old girl when confronted. This is the tale of the epic, but very short lived adventure of the grown man and the bat.

Will and I were casually watching Orange is the New Black because let's face it; it's one of the best shows on tv right now and I may or may not be able to stop watching it. Bob is Will's roommate and has the entire top floor to himself. We hear a massive bang and think okay he dropped something. He then shrieks... and yes I do my shriek. It definitely wasn't a manly yell. Will then gets a phonecall from Bob, but we ignore it. More banging ensues and yelling. We get concerned and answer the next phone call.

It went something like this:

Bob: *sheer panic* THERE. IS. A BAT. A BAT IS IN MY ROOM. OH GOD here it comes. AHHH. Help me. What do I do. How did it get up here???

Me: Uncontrollable laughter
Will: Okay calm down I'm coming.

This is one of those moments where I absolutely hated myself for not grabbing my phone to record the hilarity. We get up to his room and walk in. Bob is crouched behind his bed for cover while holding a t-shirt that he flings when the bat gets close by. This flinging is also accompanied by a girly yell and "oh god... oh god..." By this point the bat is terrified and probably wondering what in the heck is going on. It's flying in a big circle around the room. It tried to fly out the door I was by and I slammed it in its face so we could contain it. Will, unlike Bob, is not terrified of bats. He calmly tried to coax the bat into a pillowcase, but it was too smart for that. He then trapped it inside a laundry hamper.

Bob decided since it was trapped that now would be a good time to come out from behind his bed. He approached the hamper cautiously and began to freak out about getting the bat out of the house.

Here's a fun video that Bob took right before he called Will. This still makes me smile.



Sorry Bob. I know I am exploiting your horror, but you had to have seen this coming.

After Will took the bat outside we went back up to Bob to see how he was coping in his now bat free environment. As we were walking back downstairs I casually threw into the conversation this gem:

Me: "Check your clothes racks for babies. There might be more."

The repeated transition from horror to hate that crossed his face was priceless. It was also completely worth it. We could hear him shuffling through his clothes for 15 minutes before he was convinced I was kidding.

Then because I couldn't help myself I sent him this picture.

With a caption that said "Just think. You could've woken up to this beauty! Best friends!" (Thank you national geographic website for this photo. It's not mine it is completely theirs.)

All I got was a message back saying he hated me. So worth it. 

"As much as they deny it I think people like being scared. It's a phenomenon, why people want to be scared when there is so much violence and craziness in the world. People still really enjoy being scared.  It's a conundrum to me. It's hard to explain. It's an unconscious thing, really, why people like that so much"--Dylan McDermott

Things that are okay to do as a cat, but not as a human

"Cat: a pygmy lion who loves mice, hates dogs, and patronizes human beings." --Oliver Herford

Cats are notorious for doing annoyingly cute things that make us laugh and feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, but at the same time wonder why we ever adopted them in first place. As those of you who read my blog regularly know that I have had some interesting encounters with cats recently. This time the culprit is named Natasha. She is my boyfriend's (Will) cat. For some reason she thinks it is okay to bang on the door at 5am and run on the bed like a maniac when we are fast asleep in dream land. She's the inspiration for this story. Enjoy :)

Things that are okay to do as a cat, but not as a human being:

1. Bite people when they attempt to give you affection.

Cats are notorious for letting you pet them a specific number of times before they attack your hand. This mystical number changes each petting session and you will never be given any warning.

It's even worse when it happens with people... That would just be horrible.

2. Lick yourself in front of people

How cats can lick themselves for hours I will never know. I do know that it is hilarious to pet them right after they finish. The dirty look like they are calculating how best to murder you without getting their fur dirtier than your hand just made it is priceless.

3. Sit on someone

Cats always find the most awkward way to sit on you right when you are in the middle of reading something or are about to get up. Once they're on you, you're trapped by a purring ball of fur that happens to have retractable claws of fury.

4. Knock over everything on a table for no reason

We've all had it happen. Sometimes it scares us to death when a lamp falls on your face in the middle of the night. Sometimes we think someone is breaking into the house, but it's really the cat parading around knocking your things on the floor while staring you in the eye daring you do stop them. Can you do anything about it? No. Why? Because they're cats.

5. Wake people up at 5am. 

Whether it's the cats making loud noises that makes it sound like a troupe of tap dancing sumo wrestlers are on your roof or right next to you in bed or the melodious screech of cats singing you the song of their people at the top of their lungs there is no denying that they are doing it just to enjoy our reactions. My personal experience with this has not been fun. EVERY SINGLE TIME I spend the night at Will's the cat decides to learn out to play the drums on his closet door and makes a surprisingly loud noise. Guess what time she does this? 3am. Every. Single. Time. Nothing will stop her. She is determined to make sweet sweet music with that door. Only it's not sweet. It's horrifying to wake up to and makes me want to lock her out of the room. Number 6 is what happens as a result of locking her out. I've chosen the lesser of 2 evils... number 5... 

PS I tried to replicate (obviously) the noise Natasha makes on that door... I came nowhere close. She's got some sort of noise making voodoo that she does. 

6. Crying...or should I say meowing outside of doors

I don't know why cats think that because a door is closed that they need to A) beat it down mercilessly because how DARE you shut me out of a room and B) why they have to sit outside the door constantly testing their opera skills in how loud and proud they can meow. For such a small creature they can really make a ridiculous amount of noise. Of course they do this at stupid o clock in the morning when the rest of the world is asleep.

7. Bringing dead animals to you

Now I don't mean the friendly neighborhood "oh hey I went hunting here is a lump of meat for your freezer." I mean the "hey I just killed this with my bare hands and dropped it by your feet. Hope you don't mind the trail of blood and gore I left all over the yard and my fur that I'm about to rub all over your legs and furniture for you to discover later. Enjoy!"

Yes that is my dad holding a dead chipmunk. Don't worry it died of natural causes. The last thing I need is for people to think my dad has a vendetta against cute and cuddly chipmunks. Turns out he found it (dead) on top of a filing cabinet in a blanket where it went to live out its last hours. I guess it got trapped in the garage and well... ended up very flat and lifeless. He came into my room (my Dad not the chipmunk turned zombie) with a goofy grin and pulled that dude from behind his back. Honestly I'm used to dead animals being randomly placed in the house. Mostly in the freezer and occasionally his office, but bringing them into my room as I'm typing a blog was A) a bad choice for him since his story is now global and B) caught me very off guard as my room is generally dead body free...unless it's spiders... then it's a war zone... 

8. Hide/sleep in awkward places

I cannot say how many times I've walked into a room and done a double take because the top of my door or a drawer suddenly grew fur and claws. Unfortunately I can say that I've unknowingly sat down in places where I thought my feet would be safe from attach since there couldn't possibly be space underneath the couch and gotten my feet chewed on. Sometimes discovering a cat in odd places is amusing, other times I'm convinced they are testing your hearts ability to not fail on you just in case they need to know for their future evil master plans. 

9. Sit on computers

Computers are sources of heat therefore cats love them. However, they ALWAYS want to lay on them when you have a particularly urgent matter to attend to on that computer. You know your computer is about to be blitzkrieged when you sense you're being watched. You turn your head and turn back to the computer to realize that the cat has tricked you, is now sitting on your keyboard with your hands trapped underneath the cat, its tail is in your face, AND the cat is looking the cutest/most innocent it has ever looked since being a kitten. It's not fair.

Cats clearly are going to do what they want, when they want, and how they want. Just as clearly, humans cannot do the same things otherwise we would probably be considered nuts. Some people love cats and I am personally a dog person, but cats who don't do the things listed above are alright in my book. I even have a soft spot for Natasha who does ALL of those things... except bringing me dead animals, but I'm convinced that's next and will also be at 3am. Although there is nothing we can do to prevent any of these things I do have some advice. Get a dog.

"Never try to out-stubborn a cat."--Robert A. Heinlein