Someone is a bit tired....

Wednesday, May 03, 2006



8 days of vacation = 489 pounds of paper.

Will she get the last big project done before she departs? Will we find her crumbled body down with her shoes, weeping as the spiders carry her away?

A pointless aside:
I work in a converted mental institution – I know, right – THE IRONY! – and in the spring, large and vicious looking spiders appear from the vents – so you’ll be typing along and them BAM – Monsieur Arachnidis Bloodthirstyus is in the middle of your computer screen. Looking at you will all 8 complex eyeballs. This scares the shit out of me, and I will often leap up – shrieking. So this time of year, I carefully do a spider scan every few hours to apprise myself of their location and potential migratory habits. Rats? No problem. Snakes? I handled snakes for a whole summer at a nature camp – Spiders? We do best on a “You stay on your side of the room and I’ll stay on mine” arrangement. My brother tells me that I have a very specific “spider scream”, which alerted all in the vicinity to the danger. Perhaps in my Jungian collective unconscious, I was eaten by a swarm of spiders.

All these folders are perfect places for the bastards to hide. Nicely played, spider Karma. Well done.

P.S. I braided that wool rug on the floor. Myself – with my HANDS! A mean Quaker taught me. I think she wanted to see me cry.

21 Baleful Regards:

Anonymous said...

Good lord. A boss from hell AND spiders. It's a good thing you're leaving soon.
And I didn't think Quakers were allowed to be mean - the mennonites though they are some realy nasty sons of bitches.

E. said...

She braids rugs, too. A wonder woman. (Nice rug. I've observed my mom make a little one, and they're no joke.) Don't know about Quakers, but I've heard the Amish are the ones to watch out for.

Request: a post on things to watch out for when choosing a preschool/daycare. What are some red flags you'd know about that us laypeople might overlook?

Anonymous said...

I am a-skeered of spiders. More than anything, I think, except for perhaps being buried alive, but since I've never been remotely in danger of being buried alive (unless you count by dog hair), spiders are my number 1 real life fear.

Ooh, and cicadas. Yeah, I know they're not mean or poisonous but they're BIG and very NOISY and when a cat brings one in (from the hunt, you know) and sets it down and it goes to making that awful nose and flying about the room, well, that's when I climb on the couch (this will keep the flying creature off of me, how??) and making some noise of my own.

Fraulein N said...

Looking at all of that paper makes me want to cry.

Anonymous said...

I have a special 'spider scream,' too, although my husband complains that it's no different from a 'there's a man in the living room with an axe' scream, which confuses him.

Happy Belated Birthday!

(loved your pics from your vacation. The Britney Spears - gawd, was she for real?)

Table4Five said...

8 days of vacation = one big-ass cup of coffee, 489 pounds of paper AND spiders? At least you have the coffee. I'm so completely freaked out by spiders that I've already trained my 9 year old son to kill them-I mean, gently release them outside into nature-when they venture up into the kitchen from the basement.

Anonymous said...

My mom grew up Quaker, and I guess she can be mean sometimes.

But she never taught me to braid a rug. Nice work!

Dawn said...

Did I mention that My supervisor is Also a Quaker?

I call her the "Commando Quaker"

Marcie said...

Your story had me looking around and checking for spiders. EECCK! I'm so scared of spiders I should of had it written into my wedding vows that my husband will promise to always dispose of them for me. (I'm so scared of them I can't even kill them!) I am so impressed by the rug braiding. You're very multi-talented.

Julie Marsh said...

Ditto Contrary - cicadas scare the living daylights out of me. Crawling bugs (as long as they are not 3 in. long like roaches in the south and in the basement of the Pentagon) I can handle. Flying bugs - forget it.

Pour the coffee on the paper and go home to take a nap. Problem(s) solved.

Meghan said...

Okay, HERE's A good question. Which is worse: Spider or Millipede.

VERY IMPRESSED with the rug. I never even mastered fingerknitting.

Andrea said...

The rental house we used to live in had a creepy basement ~ though it did have a neat-o access door through the back of a closet which made me want to be a little girl again playing secret garden. Though the reward for going through that door was a dank, unfinished basement with a crack in the main access door (that we had to go outside to get to) that let in all kinds of creepy things. I was happy to get a washer and dryer, but the hookups were down there and I had to venture down there several times a week. We had a hybrid spider alongside the plain ol' creepy regular spiders that looked like a cross between a Daddy Long Legs and a grasshopper. Imagine a Daddy Long Legs with a body the size of a quarter. We called them Hippity Hops, because yes, they jumped, too. I'll have nightmares tonight, now that I've remembered those.

You only have a few more weeks until you can move on from that job and that boss and NEVER LOOK BACK! Yay!

Anonymous said...

And I forgot to ask, If you can braid your own rug, what do you need Terrance's clippers for?

Catherine said...

I was going to accuse you of posting pictures of MY desk, but then, upon closer inspection, I realized that you actually have a window.

Anyway, welcome back home. :)

Lisa said...

Last year at this time I was battling the brown recluse spiders in our old house. They bite and have poison! Yikes. Luckily no one got bit. But ick. So I feel your stress.

Anonymous said...

yeah, so is that mojito/margarita buzz officially killed now?

Anonymous said...

I think you're going to need a few more of those D&Ds to get you through those stacks. SERIOUSLY.

Spiders? Eh. They don't bother me. But I'm with C.Ella, BIRDS? AAAAAAAAAAHHHH. Or worse, a bird indoors, flapping around frantically. I'd rather pull out my armpit hair with a tweezers than be in the same room as that.

Table4Five said...

Tb's second comment-BWAHAHAHAHA!

Anonymous said...

yeah, Eliz, I just got TB's 2nd comment...I'm snickering at the computer right now.

Anonymous said...

I love me some Dunkin Donuts coffee. A couple of cups of that and I can handle any paperwork you wanna throw at me.

But like you, I don't like bugs. I can handle rats, mice, snakes, lizards, etc. -- but throw a spider, ant, or bee in my direction and I'm out the door.

And hey, is that only one pair of shoes I see? Are you simplifying?

halloweenlover said...

We have a fan in our bathroom that leads directly outside and a couple of times I have had spiders drop directly onto my face or hair, and I think I lost years off my life. Blech. I am also deeply afraid of spiders.

 
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