Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Arachnophobes look away

In case you've missed it, i've posted before about my hubby's extreme fear of spiders.   You can find it here.  It's actually pretty funny. http://www.peanutlayne.com/2010/02/j-will-kill-me-but.html

My husband really does have arachnophobia, which is a phobia of spiders.   I know a lot of people claim they have it and say "Oh yeah, i'm afraid of spiders", but arachnophobia is so much more serious than just being a little creeped out whenever you see an eight legged creature.  For example, when J encounters a spider, or even just a spider web, his reaction is so severe that I worry he may actually keel over and die one of these days.  I'm talking full blown panic attack.  He can't speak.  He can't move.  He forgets how to breathe normally.  He completely, totally and utterly shuts down.  It's pretty bad folks.  If my life were in danger and J had to step over a spider to save my life, i'd be screwed.  No joke.  Me on the other hand?  I actually used to collect spiders as a child and place them in a mason jar and call them my pets.  Yeah, I was a weird, strange, little girl!  Explains a lot about me, doesn't it?

As if all of this isn't funny enough, his extreme arachnophobia leads to other bizarre spider related behavior. He is known to fill up numerous spray bottles of essential lemon oil (he read online somewhere that spiders don't like it) and walk around the house like a mad man, spraying the entire parameter of our house with his homemade lemon concoction.  The smell from the 10,000 pounds of lemon oil that he uses (that stuff is hardcore too) is so freaking strong that you can hardly stand it. It's as if a lemon grove puked all over our house.  The smell just seeps in through the cracks and you walk around the house gagging on lemon fumes. I can only imagine what our poor neighbors must think!  If I had to guess they probably think we are trying to cover up the smell of rotting, dead corpses (they already think we're completely looney), but nope, it's only my whackadoodle of a hubby trying to keep the spiders away!  We use Pine Sol to cover up the body stench….TOTALLY kidding. The only stench that covers our house (aside from the lemon) is the smell of rotting diapers.

Anyways, now that you've lost your lunch with my diaper comment, late last night he had gone into the garage to look for something. He was apparently sorting through boxes trying to find some old football video thing (who knows, who cares).  J is a night owl and typically never goes to bed before 3 am so it's not usual for him to be puttering around the house in the middle of the night.  It was probably close to 2 am and I had passed out on the couch watching television.  The living room and the garage are not far from each other (they even share a wall).  I was resting peacefully on the couch when all of a sudden I was woken up by these horrendous, gut wrenching screams of horror.

Most normal people who were woken up in such a manner would probably go into panic mode thinking that their spouse was being attacked by an intruder, right?  I mean after all it was the middle of the night and he sounded like he was being attacked given the severity of the screams.  Nope.  I knew immediately what was going on.  "J must've seen a spider" I muttered to myself as I rolled my eyes and pried my tired body off of the couch.  

I make my way into the garage and I see J standing on a weight bench and screaming like someone was pointing a gun to his head.  I quickly tried to reason with him.  "Babe, it's 2 am.  Do you REALLY want the neighbors to call the cops thinking one of us is being murdered?"  J proceeded to keep screaming.   By this point i'm getting irritated and confused.  I knew it had to be spider related considering there was no intruder in the garage that I could see, and he looked to be unharmed, as in no obvious sign of injury.   I was really thinking I was going to have to slap him across the face or pour some cold water over his head to snap him out of it, when all of a sudden I saw something scurry across the floor.  

Something like this……
I leaped up onto the weight bench with J.  "OH MY GOD, it's going to eat us alive" I screamed. This did not help the situation, especially considering I am always the one who rescues J from the big bad spiders and kills them but there was no way in hell I was getting close enough to this furry bastard to kill it!  Can you imagine trying to step on one of these mother f@ckers?!  Seriously this thing was half as big as my foot!

By this point J was finally starting to put words together.

"Wh-wh-what the F@#K is that?"  He screamed at me.

"I DON'T KNOW".  I screamed back.  Remember it was 2 am and I wasn't sure if I really saw a tarantula crawling in our garage, or if I was dreaming.

"It was, it was, it was" he kept stuttering.

"It was WHAT?" I yelled back all annoyed that he was still speaking toddler language.

"Crawling up my f@cking shoe!!!!" J screamed back at me.

Both of us just stood there completely paralyzed with fear.   By this point every single kid was awake in the house.  We yelled at them to go back to their beds and stay there.  As for the spider?  He ran away for dear life which means he's still out there somewhere.  J was unable to sleep and spent the entire night Googling "mini tarantulas" and we're pretty sure we've narrowed it down to two species of spiders.  Our furry friend was either a Hobo spider or a Tegeneria Gigantea.  Both spiders are commonly found in the Pacific Northwest (lucky us).  The Hobo spider is definitely the scariest out of the two, for if you get bit by one of those, you're going to wish you were dead! The Tegeneria can bite through human skin, but the bites are rarely serious.

See what I mean?
However, that hasn't stopped my husband from going completely bat shit crazy on a mission to kill and destroy every single spider that dares to enter our house.  The following day he was up bright and early (not that he slept that night) and headed to Home Depot to purchase a fumigator for the garage.  Once again I tried to be the voice of reason with the man and remind him that those fumigators were toxic and that if we didn't die of cancer, we'd most likely grow a third nipple.  However, I lost this battle.  The garage was promptly fumigated and we still haven't found the body to our furry friend.  J is convinced that despite fumigating the garage, he's still out there, waiting and plotting his revenge.  

17 comments:

  1. Oh no! HAHAHAHA!!!

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  2. Hilarious, but I'm so sorry for you.

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  3. Laughing out loud at your story telling. I'm not laughing at your husband...I don't think! ;-)

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  4. Oh my gosh. That is so terrifying and not funny at all!! It's so not funny though, that it's almost funny, LOL. I kind of wish I hadn't read this though... I keep doing this weird shiver that you get when you have a chill!! I am like your husband. I once fainted on stage during a choir performance because there was a spider and I felt like I couldn't run. I've been known to scream, cry, run, hyperventilate, and on occasion go into an asthma attack. That spider looks terrifying. You should look into an exterminator service. We have a company that comes out and sprays 4 times a year, and they come out and spray the inside whenever I call (which is whenever I see a spider). The stuff they use is pet safe and green and doesn't smell like lemon! LOL.

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  5. I feel for you, I really do, but the thought of a "Hobo Spider" with a crumpled little top hat and a bindle slung over his shoulder is really making me giggle right now. Do you think he eats teeny-tiny beans from an itty-bitty can? Heeheeheeheehee!!!

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  6. I HATE spiders. I'm not as bad as your husband, but I'd rather see a snake or a mouse in my house. Seriously. I blame all the hedges around our house growing up. We used to call it 'running the gauntlet' to get from the front yard to the back. There would be a series of spiders and their webs you'd either run head long into or whack with a stick. eeeeew

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  7. Oh Lordy, that was very funny.

    BTW, you aren't weird for keeping spiders as pets when you were young, I did it too and now I collect dead things in jars: http://www.southernortherner.com/2012/07/i-dead-things.html

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  8. O. O dear. I'm afraid I have to add my insane laughter to the list. I'm quite fond of spiders actually, and cannot bear to hurt them, or any insects really. Spiders, like most insects, really want to have as little as possible to do with us; I definitely prefer just flicking them off to squishing them. Remember, most spiders don't see very well and won't attack unless provoked. They are great pest controllers (they eat more insects than bats and birds together) and their venom can be used in medicine and eco-friendly insecticide. You (and you husband haha) might perhaps be interested in this article: http://theglassspider.hubpages.com/hub/Strange-Facts-About-Spiders :)

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  9. Our husbands should be friends. It is crazy to me that my husband does insane swat crap for a living, but put a spider or bee in the picture and he would use our kids or me as a sheild against them.

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  10. Between you and Momaical, I will never ever set foot in the Pacific Northwest!! I cannot stand spiders...the big,hairy ones...and what you just described would have been the death of me!! Shit!! Did you have to show that half-eaten limb?!??!?!?!!

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  11. Yikes! I would have hopped up on that weight bench too! I am wowed that you are the resident defender against evil spiders in your home--truly an admirable Momma! :) And here's hoping gallons of lemon oil find their way to your home to assist in the cause ;)

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  12. Yeah, I'm your husband. Panic attacks and all. Whereas my own dear husband once killed a spider and then stuffed it into a hole in his wall (bachelor pad), as "a warning to the other spiders."

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  13. Ok, scary as hell! I nominated you for a blog award, stop by to pick up your prize... http://www.todaywiththetennerys.com/2012/10/one-lovely-blog-award.html

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  14. Hi! I found you through Naptime review link up and have to say, "Thank you for making me laugh"! I've had quite a day and this turned it around:) So glad I found you! And I have to say that your tag line on the blog about "permanent birth control" had me laughing out loud. Literally!

    Now following via GFC!

    Roni @ HomePayge blog

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  15. I hate spiders too, and there's no way I would step on a big one, or go back in the house where it crawled, lol.

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