Creepy Crawlies

Although I try to keep the majority of the things I write light and humorous, I've discovered that this blog is actually quite cathartic. So, I decided to get a little more serious and tell a story that probably won't register as too funny, but is still worth reading. Before I get into anything too serious, however, I would like to say this is what I want for my birthday:Isn't it glorious? I don't know if I want to sit in it or just snuggle...

Wow.

Now down to some seriousness. I've decided that this blog will be a bit of a canvas for life stories, a mini history of myself. Of course, like anyone else, all of my life stories aren't funny or pleasant, this being one of them.

The following story is from when I was nine years old. My mother and I were living with my Uncle Larry in Russellville Arkansas in a very small, very run down trailer down the street from my grandparents. The water heater was hanging out of the side of the trailer, and every once-in-a-while warranted a rough push back into the lining of the house. We could live with the fact that it wasn't the nicest home in the world, it was fairly temporary. I could also live with the blood stain still on my carpet from where my previous pet cat had murdered and eaten my poor guinea pig fluffy. What we had a hard time handling were the insects.

The first encounter with an unwanted housemate was discovered by my uncle Larry. I returned from school one day to find a jar with a scorpion on the kitchen counter, and a note that said "Look what I found in the living room!" As a fairly normal 9 year old girl, I had visions of this creature let loose in my home, and ending up below my unsuspecting foot.

I didn't even know Arkansas had scorpions.

A few weeks later, Larry (poor guy) was walking out of the bathroom, and a rather large centipede fell from nowhere directly on to his head. He screamed louder and in a higher octave than I thought possible for a fully grown man. Then again, I would have too.

Shortly after that Larry (once again) walked outside of our front door, and was promptly greeted with a giant nest of granddaddy longlegs to the head. Although I'm usually not frightened by insects, there's something about the image of thousands of tiny, spindly spiders crawling all over someone's face that stuck with me.

Although most of this did, in fact, happen to poor Uncle Larry, my room was a topic of interest for local insects as well. Except for mine were all giant, disgusting wolf spiders. If you've never seen a wolf spider, here is a picture for reference:

Good God.

In the floor of my closet was a giant, gaping hole through which one could view the outside world. Unfortunately, this was basically an open invitation for giant, terrifying spiders during the cold winter months. On one particular incident, my mother had suggested we make a pallet on the floor of our living room as a type of slumber party. Although this seemed like a fantastic idea at the time, issues my mother was facing led to her passed out on our pallet which consisted of my entire mattress and no place for me to sleep. Not to mention she is an extremely violent snorer.

I walked back to my room which was rather cold at this point and picked up my pillow on the box spring to try to curl up and fall asleep. Underneath my pillow was a gigantic, hairy wolf spider just waiting for me to fall asleep. It ran off of my bed, and was nowhere to be seen for the rest of the night. Terrified, cold and lonely, I eventually fell asleep curled up in a ball on my box spring, covered with a towel as a blanket. Needless to say, not so great a night.

Ever since then, I always check my bed before I go to sleep. Just to make sure, I guess, that I don't have any unwelcome bedmates. Surprisingly enough, though, I'm not the least bit afraid of spiders. I guess going to sleep with absolute certainty that my room was full had something to do with it.

Until next time, thanks for reading.