Je déteste la nature!

On my deck I noticed a strange little growth on the wall. It was about a foot above my head, and was the same shape as my index finger, if my index finger were cut off and glued horizontally to the wall, that is. I looked at it and decided it was a wasp’s nest. As all things insect and nature-related fall under Mike’s roommate responsibilities, I decided to tell him to take care of it later that night, but forgot. A week later we were out on the balcony and again I noticed this strange growth. Only now, the growth was bigger than it had been before. It was now about the size of 4 of my index fingers laid on top of each other. It was strange looking, and Mike didn't think that it was a wasps nest. In fact, he was stumped. Mr. I Love Camping More Than Staying In Hotels was stumped. Now that I looked closer I noticed that it looked more like concrete than that waspy paper they make their nests out of. I also noticed there were no openings for the wasps to fly in and out of. Trés bizarre.

I tell Mike to get rid of it, and he says he's going to get some wasp spray the next day. Next day, what? I can’t wait that long. I wanted it gone right then! The thing on the wall had become a Thing. For those who don’t know, a Thing is what happens when you are craving Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup Santas and the past three stores in which you have attempted to purchase the Santa’s are sold out. This does not deter you. In fact it only encourages you to try four more stores until the Santa’s are safely in a shopping bag. A Thing is when you call every Target and Wal-Mart within 2 hours of your house looking for Mean Girls on DVD and after being told they are sold out, you drive to each and every one of them thinking that the salespeople are just lying to you to be mean.

As this was a Thing involving insects, it became the worst kind of thing. I decide to take matters into my own hands. I say, "Fine! I'll do it myself!" I stomp into the house and grab the mop. I figured that if I pushed the mop along the wall I could knock whatever-it-was into my neighbors yard. Ready for a swarm of wasps to attack my face, I raise the mop above my head and push it as hard as I can toward the hive. The mop connects with the hive but instead of pushing it off the wall and onto the ground, the whole thing explodes. Bits of dried mud nest went everywhere. My arms, head and bare feet were sprinkled with it. As I stood there, I became very confused. I didn't see a single wasp. In fact, I was so surprised by the lack of wasps that I never thought to look down on the ground.

Behind me, Mike said, in a very nonplussed, matter of fact way, "Oh. It's not wasps. It's spiders." I didn't even look at the ground. I spun around, pushed Mike out of the way and ran into the house. I was convinced that my legs and head were now covered with spiders. Three seconds later my pants were off and I was running up the stairs. Screaming. It was a spider bomb. A little clay nightmare filled with spiders! For those of you who aren’t aware, I am more scared of spiders than I am of bad footwear.

This was spider retribution. A month ago I found a giant spider in my bedroom. It was roughly the size of a dime, sitting on the wall as I walked in. Frozen in the doorway, I tried not to throw up on the floor. Clearly, the only course of action was to capture and kill it.

I pick up an empty water glass from my nightstand, and creep toward the spider. I will slowly place the glass over the spider and knock it in by sliding a sheet of paper between the wall and the glass. When the lip of the glass was roughly an inch from the spider, it jumped right at me! This is why spiders are pure evil. They look like they are sleeping on the wall and then leap at you, fangs extended! Disgusting! I swear I heard it hissing.

Luckily the spider ended up in the glass and not on my face. I ran downstairs with the glass and now had to decide what to do with it. I didn’t want to let it go. That act of kindness would only encourage other spiders to come and visit. I didn’t want to squish it. That’s just gross. Plus if I did that, I’d have to throw the glass away. As it is, I’m going to have to soak the glass in bleach just to get the spider germs out of it. That’s it! Why wait till the spider is out of the glass to fill it with bleach? Genius! Isn’t that how they knock out animals to be dissected in labs? I was quite proud of how humanely I was going to handle dispose of this bug.

I take the bleach from the laundry room, and notice that the spider is watching me walk around the room. This unnerves me more than a little. I hurry to the glass and fill it about halfway with bleach. I take a step back to watch the hideous creature fall asleep and die. I wait. And wait. And wait. The spider isn’t dying. It’s just swimming around in the cup full of bleach. This really pisses me off. I tried to kill this little monster the nicest way I could think of. How dare it not cooperate?! I’ll show this little bastard just who he is messing with. As I pick up the glass I swear that spider smirked at me! Carrying the glass at arms length, I reach the sink, turn on the water and pour the glass of bleach down the drain. And then I turn on the garbage disposal. Take that, beotch! Let this be a lesson to all of your little spider friends!

After I showered I went back downstairs and said to Mike. "Well, I am never going out on that balcony again." He looked at me and said, “It’s only spiders. And besides, they’re all dead. And there were like 50 of them. Huh.” Wait...what? Only a few spiders? That’s like saying, “Hurricane Katrina was only a small thundershower.” The moral of the story is this: Some other creature had been collecting spiders and storing them in these strange little clay tubes. This is my worst nightmare come to life. My balcony has become the dead spider supermarket.

As Mike was totally unsympathetic, I decided to write an e-mail to my best friendy, and fellow spider hater, Angela. Her reaction was much more appropriate. She said, “That is horrifying!!!!! I would die! What a weird creature. What do you think it is? Maybe it will make its next dead spider morgue in your bed under your pillow. Maybe it’s a huge spider that eats other spiders and its going to take over your house. I would have had nightmares for a month. Move.”

Spoken like a true best friend.