Wednesday, December 3, 2008

TO SLEEP OR NOT TO SLEEP

By nature, I consider myself a humorous person. Or at least I think I have a good sense of humor.

I love jokes, puns, riddles, satire, irony, and nonsensical rhyme. I hold Bill Cosby and Dick Vandyke high on my list of I wannabe like thems. They make me laugh at myself, my life, and all the absurdities associated with both.

When I read one short sentence by either, I begin to laugh. I mean the deep, belly heaving kind of laughter that only happens when something is genuinely funny. Funny because its not at the expense of a particular culture or religion or sex or occupation, but funny because its actually funny.

Which brings me to their being hysterically funny and me being unconditionally fearsome of spiders. That's where their humor and my phobia part company. The most humorous piece ever written about spiders would not seem funny to me. I would cringe at the description of an eight-legged thing crawling into my bed or out of the drain. This wouldn't be "funny" to me.

Spiders scare me. They weigh but one antenna short of an ounce, move at a speed that makes capture virtually impossible, conceal themselves so that even the sharpest eye can't readily see them, make no noise, leave no messy trail, eat practically nothing, don't spread rabies, can't be caught in a conventional animal trap, won't eat your winter clothes, and won't poop on your patio. Yet, they are sneaky little bugs - and I won't even acknowledge their real scientific name - who somehow manage to get into the house when you're not looking.

This isn't funny. Bill couldn't make it funny. Dick couldn't rhyme it funny.

They are ugly, hairy, persistent, and single minded. All they want to do is lay eggs, spin webs and raise more ugly, hairy, persistent little clones. This is not funny; this may be God's way of evening out the world.

So, trying to equate humor with fear, of course, brings up the idea of spiders and how being scared witless of spiders isn't humorous. No words, descriptions or stories about spiders could ever, ever, ever make me see the humor of the situation.

So, Humor:Fear must go hand in tentacle, if you get my drift. Spiders were not made for funny stories. Funny stories were not written about spiders. So, please when I tell you this, DO NOT LAUGH.

I found a spider nestled right into our blanket (yes, the one on the bed) a couple of nights ago. I think my heart actually STOPPED. It crawled down the mattress and under the bed somewhere. When I looked under there I found two more. Not exactly sure what to do, I ran to the bathroom vanity and grabbed some bug spray and under the sink found another one; bigger than the first three put together. While in the middle of spraying the living daylights out of the big big one, I heard Eric yelling from the kitchen that they were all over the kitchen floor. This has got to be some kind of joke right? {NOT FUNNY} He wasn't kidding. I saw them, actually saw them, crawling out of every cupboard in our kitchen.

Then I woke up.

Seriously, one of the worst dreams I've EVER had.

Honestly though, I did find one in the blanket on our bed. And it really did crawl under the bed. Thank goodness Eric is as crazy as I am about them. We winter-cleaned the room looking for that creepy-crawly because there was NO WAY I was getting in bed until that think was killed. We never found it. 1:49 am and the bedroom is rearranged and cleaner than it's ever been, and we still never found it.

I did fall asleep. In the bed. And that's gotta be why I had that dream. Because the last thing I remember thinking was 'You know how they say "if only I were a fly on the wall"? Do the same rules apply to spiders? Or what the heck do those little buggers hang around for anyway? I guess probably to suck the 411 out of the flies that have been listening all day long . . .'

Let's just forget the whole thing and move on to something more acceptable like
fruit bats or ladybugs ... now that could make a funny, less fearsome, dream. I could handle that.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm sooo glad you woke up! I was totally getting creepy crawly (I just had to stop typing and scratch my head!) I'm sure the spider that was nestled (I love that you used nestled)in your blanket got smashed while you were cleaning and he crumpled into a little ball on the carpet and that is why you couldn't find him. At least that's the ending I prefer. It beats the one where he continued to nest in your cozy blanket and laid eggs. (I guess I should have said she.) Eeeww!
And I thought this was going to be a post about Braxton keeping you up at night!

Gallup Family said...

Jared was about ready to scream reading your post. It's funny because I used to be terrified of spiders too but then I married Jared and he was even more scared and refused to get near one, I decided I needed to "man up" and be the one to kill them. Jared and Sarah will just scream when they see one but Jaden and I will come and kill them.

Cindy said...

Yikes! Your story had me all creppy crawly. You would think with 2 cats I wouldn't have to worry about it - but they just watch the spiders and look at me. I don't know what's worse - killing them (yuk) or letting them live and wonder where they go. I usually try and get 'em, but I usually have to scream while I am doing it...