Creepy Crawly

This is horrible. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. I managed to eat, so I'm sure sleep won't be a problem. I'll probably forget all about it, but maybe I shouldn't. Perhaps I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though.

When I was a child I tormented insects. One bored afternoon I took a large rock and turned an ant colony into an ant graveyard. I think I was 7 or 8 at the time, but I've regretted it ever since. When ants would make their way into the house, I'd sometimes catch them in those little plastic bubbles 25 cent toys would come in, and set them adrift in the middle of the sink. Some would try to swim to safety. Some would sink to the bottom, then simply walk. Sometimes I'd turn on the hot water, and they'd stop moving completely. It was all very sadistic and all motivated by boredom. The ones who survived earned freedom. Occasionally some seemed dead, but a rolled up piece of toilet paper to absorb water and poke at them sometimes revived them.

Usually, a tale like that goes a different way. I didn't move on to small animals, then humans, like history's notorious serial killers. I had a conscience, and ”thou shalt not kill” was a commandment that began to weigh heavily on my soul. As I got older, I'd step carefully on the sidewalk to avoid accidentally killing any insects. A short story I read about a kid who learns out to transmute things freaked me out as well. He learned spells to change things, and turned his pencil into gold for example. But when the pencil broke, it reverted back to its original form. When he turns his friend into a fly, then swats it, the author left the result to my imagination. I would not be taking any chances.

As a result, I adopted a “catch-and-release” policy. Any insects found in the house were trapped in those same plastic bubbles, and released out in my yard. There are certain exceptions to this rule, certain lines that can be crossed. If a bug runs across my bed for example, I have zero tolerance usually. If a bug looks particularly horrible? Dead. I didn't say it was a fair rule, but if they're ugly or surprise me in a place that's supposed to be safe, my first reaction is to eliminate them swiftly and without mercy. WHAM.

Flash forward now to Thursday night. After a long but relaxing day sitting in front of my computer at work, I was in my room sitting in front of my computer at home. This is my life. I had about an hour until Thursday's marathon of television. Monday? 1 show. Tuesday? 1 show. I get a break on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday, and have two shows on Sunday. But Thursday? Lately I've had no less than seven shows in the same night, most of which run at the same time keeping my VCR busy. So, I was getting my surfing done in the window of time between getting home from work and curling up with my remotes.

I took a break to grab dinner, which I brought back to my room. I put the plate on the foot of my bed, within arm's reach, and returned to the game I was playing. When I finished a round and had a break, I turned to my plate. Thank God I turned to my plate. On one side of the plate were three turkey sausages and a small pile of potatoes. Across the middle of the plate lay my fork. Beyond the fork, standing out against the white plate was a tiny black spider who stopped skittering at my first shriek.

I'm generally very calm around bugs. If I'm watching television and I see a spider out of the corner of my eye, I'll glance at the ceiling now and then until a commercial break affords me time to remove it. A bug pretty much has to be on me for me to freak out. Running across my bed is bad. Running across my dinner plate is awful. Running across the plate on my bed was unimaginable, and I just yelped. I froze. It froze. I yelped again. I picked up the plate. The thing darted an inch to the left. I dropped the plate. The thing jumped and was simply gone.

I was pretty sure I spotted it before it touched my food. Still, it was a few minutes before I got up the nerve to eat my dinner, and I definitely couldn't eat in my room after that. I watched three hours of television then another two hours on tape, and managed to do it all before midnight. But now I'm back in my room, and I never found that spider. “It's the ones you don't see that you have to worry about,” said my mom with a wry grin. I'm not sure I like that “advice”. This is horrible. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. I managed to eat, so I'm sure sleep won't be a problem. I'll probably forget all about it, but maybe I shouldn't...