Bugging Out

I recently spent 5 nights in a very nice hotel and I got the best sleep I’ve had in half a year.  I realized on day two that the reason I was sleeping so well was that I didn’t have to worry about anything (including rolling off the bed as this mattress was almost queen size!). For the first time in 6 months I wasn’t worried about any critters coming out of the ceiling, any spiders crawling on me or the potential to run into cockroaches on the floor.  I slept with my arms on top of the covers, freely flailing about with no fear, even walking barefoot in the middle of the night.  It was a magical time.

I'm not saying I'm the world's best photographer, but clearly I'm pretty good. 

Not magical: clown-themed candy. This stuff is everywhere. 

My first night back in my own house, I felt strangely confident and comfortable.  I mean come on, I only found one dead cockroach when I came home after more than a week, and I slept like a rebel with my arms on TOP of the covers.  Well, I slept that way until I remembered that I came home to large piles of wood “powder” that had accumulated everywhere during my absence thanks to all the termites in my wood ceiling.  One of those piles was on my bed near my pillow and I started to worry that the wood dust would end up in my ear, so I spent the rest of the night with the sheets pulled over my head.

I did notice a few more spiders than normal in the house after a week's absence but whatever; spiders are an important part of the ecosystem and if you don’t bug me, I won’t bug you.  The next day I ran into one of those flat, jumping spiders and I didn’t want to kill it, but it was jumping towards me and in my bedroom, which was not cool.  When it was time to go to bed, I saw something moving on the living room wall – another spider.  Adios mi amigo - your time in my house has come to an end.  Then I saw a HUGE spider on the glass door to the garden.  I mean huge like the size of a full hand.  I took the bug spray – purchased to take out the cockroaches – and sprayed and then the spider was gone.  Like "vanished into thin air" gone with no trace that the giant creature was ever there.  As I frantically jumped around searching my hair and body for where it went, all I could think was "what kind of magic spider am I dealing with here?"

Querétaro art that captures the creepy spider mood.

I headed back to my room and something flew by my head which elicited a scream.  Turns out it was a big black moth the size of a small bat.  I ran into my bedroom, feeling safe behind the door with a guard at the bottom to keep all those creepy crawlers out.  The sanctity of a bedroom is a precious thing.  That sanctity was quickly dissolved when I saw another one of those huge flat spiders on the wall above my bed. Too big and too close to ignore I headed back into the kitchen for a chair, the broom and bug spray and narrowly avoided another run in with the big flying moth (who I think we can all assume had some kind of malicious intent).  The spider was too high to reach with the broom so I sprayed two times and watched him crawl back into the ceiling. I could literally hear him walking on the wall that’s how big he was.  Anytime I now hear a noise while in bed, I’ll assume it’s a giant killer spider.  Wait, what if that noise I hear every night in my ceiling is actually a bunch of giant spiders walking around, plotting their attack?!

 This is how you keep everything from walking on your ledge: shards of glass sticking straight up.

I'm guessing there are fewer spiders in this alley than in my house.

About 10 minutes later the giant spider dropped out of the air onto my bedside table, less than a foot from where I was sitting. There may have been another shriek followed by the broom beating on the table which then shattered the glass on top and sent shards all over my bedroom.  I headed back out to the kitchen to get the dustpan to clean up all the glass, and sure enough, there was the other giant flippin spider back on the door.  I sprayed it again, and again it disappeared into thin air, continuing with its mysterious ways.  I cautiously backed my way towards the bedroom door, ducking as the killer moth tried to strike again.

I'm on an "every-other-night I see something a little creepy in my house" schedule these days.  Which means every other night I don't find anything as I constantly scan the walls and ceiling searching for anything out of place.  And every other night I scan and find a cockroach crawling above me or a spider jumping towards me.  Or what I think is a bat flying at my head.  

So yeah....  I’ve needed a lot of calming music to get to sleep at night and the soundtrack to the movie The Descendants is my favorite source of soothing, Hawaiian music.  I love that soundtrack so much, I just bought a ukulele to learn how to play.  What better skill to learn during my Peace Corps service?  Maybe my lack of musical ability will drive all the spiders out of my house and into the peaceful quiet of the great outdoors.  A girl can dream.

Who knew the characters from the TV show "The Dinosaurs" still had a presence in Mexico?