Creatures

Bryce and I have a new rule. When one of us (usually me) suddenly screams, the other person races for the vacuum cleaner while person number one (the screamer) stands guard and maintains a watch on the 8-legged monster to make sure we don't lose it. This is a very effective rule; it has risen organically over the last few months.

There's some big spiders here, but they're honestly not bigger than the huge ones that swarmed a house my mom and dad rented about 15 years ago when we were between houses. I remember a particularly huge black one hanging out on the wall above my sister's bed, and I remember that twice my poor brother had a spider crawl onto his shoulder: once while he was sitting on the couch and once while at the dining room table having dinner. That second time all I could do was look, point, and give silent screams and stutters.

We were always bug-bombing that house.

Twice, while making the bed in our current home, a spider has come out of the mass of blankets on the floor. Once it actually had the temerity to crawl ON TOP OF THE CLEAN SHEET I had just put on the bed. eeghhhh. There is new rationale to making our bed every morning: I don't want any blankets hanging off the bed to act as a ladder for any dang spiders.

They get in through the windows, which we leave cracked open during the day for moisture reasons. You might wonder how spiders can slip through screened windows. Well. Our windows have no screens. I have yet to see a screened window in New Zealand. Apparently only Australians need screens on their windows; everyone knows that THEY have the bugs to worry about.