Condemned

Well, I am officially declaring the house we are staying in condemned. Thank goodness we only have three more nights there because, if they are anything like last night, they will be sleepless ones.

I guess this story probably starts a long time ago. If you ask my mom about some of the times that she got the most upset with me as a child, she'll likely tell you a story that involves a bug. The worst was the time that she took my brother and I to ride our bikes at the high school. There were wide sidewalks that ran all the way around the large building and in the summer the place was deserted - it was great for us because we had lots of room to ride and great for her because she didn't have to worry about us getting hit by a car. Anyway, the only downside to the whole set up was that we couldn't quite ride all the way around the building. On one side, there was a fence that was closed off over the summer, blocking the sidewalk. We could ride all the way around to the fence, but then had to return the way we'd come to get back around to the front of the building.

So, it's a nice warm sunny day. My mom is sitting in the grass at the front of the building watching us ride around. All is well until she hears me screaming at the top of my lungs. As any mother would, she panics and goes running in the direction of my screams. The only problem is, she gets around the side of the building only to be blocked by the large fence. She can see me and my toppled bike a little further on and immediately assumes that I've crashed and broken several bones in my body. I can't remember if she ran the other way around the building to get to me or if she finally coaxed it out of me through the fence, but she eventually discovered that I hadn't crashed - it was something much worse! A bee had landed on me! I was absolutely paralyzed with fear! Apparently, my mom didn't share my fear because she was quite upset when she figured out the source of my screams.

I'm sure my parents could tell you many, many more stories about me and my fear of bugs. These days, I have a little bit more self control when it comes to creepy, crawlies, but not much... I no longer scream when I see them and I'm usually able to keep myself from running from them; now it's more of a fast walk!

So, now that I've established my deep rooted fear of bugs, I'll return to last night. I went into the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed and was quite startled to see a nasty looking spider staring back at me from its perch on the wall. I calmly called to Jason to come kill it, which he did, but then, as he started to head back upstairs, I saw two more stalking me from two different directions! (spider count = 3) Well, the wheels started turning in my head, "If there are this many spiders in the bathroom, I wonder how many are in my bedroom!?" Off we went to check it out. Sure enough, the first corner I checked was home to a big ol' scary one! (spider count = 4) After getting rid of that one (via Jason), I continued my search. Half a roll of toilet paper later, we had found and disposed of 8 more spiders (spider count = 12) in the bedroom alone!! But, the real icing on the cake was when, after competing the spider massacre, we simultaneously noticed a brownish lump on the wall near the floor. Closer inspection by Jason revealed that not only was our bedroom inhabited by a colony of spiders, but we were also sharing house with a nasty, slimy SNAIL! And finally, as we're walking our killings to the trash, you guessed it, another large spider (spider count = 13) in the hallway.

My conclusion - this place should be torn down! It's definitely not fit to be lived in in its current state.

P.S. This morning, as I left the house, I found the front door knob being guarded by another spider (spider count = 14). Let, me tell you, it took some serious imagination to figure out how to get out of the house without touching the doorknob!