My wife hates spiders. I mean, REALLY HATES SPIDERS!
Combine her level of disdain for male toilet-seat habits (not mine, of course), people who leave socks and underwear on the floor (not me, of course), and having to listen to sports talk radio in the car (the baby loves it), and that merely describes her hatred for the harmless itsy-bitsy spider in that children’s song.
Ten things my wife hates more than spiders
1. Entering homes with “Arachnophobia” in their movie collections
2-10. Nothing
Ten things my wife likes more than spiders
- Watching SportsCenter
- TSA patdowns
- Gas prices
- Listening to me read my blogs and ask, “Is that funny?”
- Cleaning up after five other people
- My snoring
- Repeating herself
- Repeating herself
- Repeating herself
- Witnessing a certain person pluck out wild nose hairs
If my wife would have been around Wilbur, Charlotte’s Web would have ended in the first chapter with her flame-torching the barn to ashes before the words “RADIANT” and “SOME PIG” ever mesmerized crowds.
Now imagine her reaction to spiders that decide to make themselves at home in the Genessy home. That’s why hearing a blood-curdling “EEEEAAAAAAWWWWWWW!!!!!” from our room on an otherwise peaceful Saturday morning didn’t really faze me.
Neighbors might’ve thought the monster spider from Lord of the Rings had invaded our bedroom and my wife didn’t have Frodo’s magical light handy to fend off Shelob. I figured she’d seen a little house spider in our bathtub or an innocent cricket on a windowsill.
Before I could ask what was going on, Heather yelled, “IT’S OK! THOUGHT IT WAS A SPIDER!”
It wasn’t, thank heavens!
Minutes later, she came in my office and showed me her arm. A white puffy patch of skin the size of a quarter surrounded a tiny red dot on her triceps where she’d been stung while lying on the carpet. Weird. Suddenly, I felt bad that I hadn’t responded to her scream.
This is Coco The Pug, whom we were dogsitting and was subject to the torture of being dressed in a costume by my wife. She is not the yellow jacket that stung my wife.
“It was only a yellow jacket,” she said, sounding very relieved. “I’m just glad it wasn’t a spider.”
The spider is very glad, too. Trust me.
My wife would approve building a pool in the backyard just to fill with insecticide to spray the entire neighborhood if we could financially work it out without having to give up our subscriptions to Netflix and Amazon Prime.
A few years ago we paid guys to spray our house and yard for pests (not of the children variety). We could have bought approximately 575,999 bottles of Raid for how much it cost, but my wife was in bug-free heaven.
I don’t have a truck with a tank on the back of it or a pest-control uniform, but I figured I could spray anti-spider juice around the foundation and on our baseboards just as good as the next guy. For much less money, too.
That worked for a few months. Our pet lizard would’ve starved to death if we had a pet lizard. Then I forgot to spray. And forgot again despite being constantly reminded. This eventually led to more shrieking (by my freaked-out wife and from spiders freaked out by my wife). I’ve heard the threat “If you don’t spray, I’m just going to call the pest-control guys!” in recent months more than I’ve heard “I love you, sweetheart!” in 12 years of marriage.
I could buy my wife a dozen roses a day for a month and maybe get a kiss on the cheek, but she’d rip my shirt off if I brought her a signed contract with the Orkin man.
Somewhat jealous of my wife’s admiration of pest-control guys she’s never met, I finally decided to unleash a bottle of Costco’s finest bug spray on the insect population around our home.
To my credit, it worked on ants in our hallway. They haven’t seen a deluge like that since Noah.
Spiders around these parts have apparently been genetically modified. This liquid seems to work like water on Gremlins. We’ve seen more creepy crawlies since I sprayed this summer than before I permanently damaged my hand squeezing that blasted squirting contraption one million times in an hour.
The worst are black widows. I sprayed about a gallon on one that was devouring her main squeeze by our back door in a scene that made me feel like I was watching the Discovery Channel on my patio. Guess she was sick of watching SportsCenter, too. I drenched another twice her size about a foot away. Worst part? I didn’t know I was going to blog, so I didn’t take a series of awesome photos.
But, c’mon! Did they not get the message that I’d recently sprayed that area and they’re not supposed to be there?! Do I need Charlotte to spin me a “No trespassing!” web?
Now we have different areas around the house that some people won’t enter.
My wife refuses to watch a movie in our theater room. COBWEBS! Personally, I won’t crawl into the sewer drain in the gutter after seeing an ugly spider in there (and because it’s a sewer drain in the gutter). Kid you not, my 8-year-old son, Ethan, came in dripping wet and complaining about a spider in his shower while I was editing this blog. Our 4-year-old, Aidan, won’t go to the bathroom downstairs because he once walked in on an eight-legged creature that forgot to lock the door before using that toilet.
Ouch! My wife’s arm had a bit of an allergic reaction to getting stung. But at least it wasn’t a spider bite, right?
Funny thing? This is the same kid who recently watched Peter Parker’s transformation and declared, “I’m going to get bit by a spider so I can be Spider-Man!”
Hopefully, he doesn’t follow through. I can only protect him from his mom for so long.
(Oh, and if you think I’m heartless and didn’t treat my wife very well, just know that I inquired how the hornet sting was feeling before asking to take a picture of her poor arm.)
Don’t tell Heather this, but I heard the average person swallows 100 spiders in his or her lifetime! At least that’s what I learned in the hallways of Spanish Fork Intermediate School… 🙂 Dig the blog!
I DEFINITELY will tell Heather that! I mean, I won’t tell her. Thanks, Natalie!
Your poor wife! I think Kira somehow is taking after Kira. Kira who doesn’t cry at two broken arms, screamed so loud when finding a spider in her room in Boise you could probably hear her in Herriman!
Oh, I still feel so bad for your girl. Hope she hit the spider with one of her casts!