What a tangled web

I hate creepy crawly things. HATE them. And spiders are the worst. The freak me out.

A couple of years ago, we had a bunch of wolf spiders who thought that we were a bed and breakfast. First one showed up on an afternoon. DS was probably about 14 at the time, and came flying out of his room like his bahoofus was on fire. I asked him what in the world happened, and he just muttered "biggest damn spider I've ever seen." I figured he was nuts, but went in and tore the room apart till I found it.

He was right. It was the biggest damn spider I had ever seen, too.

Stupid thing took off down the hall. Those suckers can MOVE, and move FAST. It ran right into our room and under my bed. I could see it, but it had gotten to somewhere that I couldn't reach, and I really didn't WANT to reach it anyway. The boys were both just freaking out, and wouldn't leave the living room, because they both hate spiders as much as I do.

DD of course marched in and said "oh for heaven's sake, people, where is it? I'll get it." She goes in my room, and tells me that she's going to get it to come out, and my assignment was to smoosh it. I'm standing in the door, waiting for it to be flattened. She shooed it out, and it went flying toward me, full tilt. I shrieked, turned to run, and fell flat on my face in the hall. Got up and turned to see daughter looking at me with total disgust, saying "what the heck is that about? Get in here and help me."

"This time," the brat says, in a condescending tone that only a teenaged girl can use, "when I shoo it out, we're not going to scream. We're going to smash it." "Maybe you are, brat, but I'm gonna run," I said.

Oye.

It took about another twenty minutes of chasing that stinking spider around, under the bed and the dresser, but she finally sent that spider to its eternal reward. We had a lot of spider problems over the summer, including one that suddenly showed up on my stomach while I was reading a book in bed. I didn't sleep for a week. Then I found that if you clean with lemony cleaners, or burn citrus scented oils, spiders don't like it. Apparently spiders don't get scurvy, but our house smelled lemony fresh for another year, and I haven't seen one since. But the season is here, so I'm stocking up on lemon oil now.

Meantime, I found a great new seller on Main Street Vintage. Her store is called The Silver Web Vintage Clothing Store, and she has this fabulous vintage satin dress that's painted with flowers -- they look like poppies to me, but hey, I live with the King of Botanical Ignorance, so maybe I'm not the one to ask. Either way, that is one HOT dress, so snap it up. And get some Lemon Pledge, too.