I would like to think that I am a normal person with a normal fear response.....dealing with with a fear in rational way....calmly removing myself from the fear-induced situation with grace and calm.
F**K that.
I swear that Virginia and the southern states as a whole, make everything more....more obvious or bigger....or something. I know that my home state of California does NOT have such GIANT critters roaming it's country side. Ok....so I can't really back that up....but I honestly can say there was NEVER anything large, or creepy, or so big you can hear them moving across the floor, casting a shadow on the freaking wall.
What am I talking about?
BUGS. SPIDERS. Oh my God.
You will never normally see me moving around in crawl spaces in ANY house, nor will you see voluntarily rummaging around in a garage or basement. Why? Because I KNOW what lives in those dark, unused areas of any house. Ain't gonna happen. I will stick my hand down a nasty drain to clear a clog; I will I stick my hand in a toilet to retrieve a fallen item; I will clean up dog crap and I will clean up vomit from a dozen kids at the center before I will even THINK about going into a disused attic space or crawl space under a porch. I don't care if there is a million dollars hidden in there somewhere. NOPE. Not happenin'.
So against my better judgment I thought about venturing out under the porch yesterday. A cat had gotten herself trapped under there and I didn't want the poor thing to be stuck. I spent several minutes, gingerly checking out the door to crawl space.....looking for evidence of large creepy crawlies ( yes that is a scientific term).....I carefully opened the door (which creaked open....seriously I can't make this stuff up...it was like a bad horror flick) and I spent another few minutes scanning the entry with a flashlight.
Seems legit.
I ventured in about four steps - crouching down as it wasn't tall enough to fully stand - and scanned the area again. I saw the little cat and called to her. As I did I felt that I had brushed up against something. *WARNING Will Robinson...WARNING!!* I turned to my left and there was - at first glance- a flimsy piece of screen - which I assumed had been left over from the original construction.
At this point I would like to say - that it was NOT a piece of screen.
On further inspection of said piece of screen with my flashlight (it was dusk), it slowly dawned on me that it was no screen.......it was a LARGE, wispy, HANGING Spider Web. It was covered in a film of dust & dirt which gave it the appearance of being something more solid.....AND it was sprinkled in dead bug carcasses and LIVE Spiders.
Oh. HELL. NO.
I would like to say my exit was graceful. But it wasn't. As I turned to RUN I missed the overhead beam by a millimeter, in doing so I fell BACKWARDS toward the nightmare web and began to scream NOOOOOOOOO. The cat and now the dog.....were running out of the crawl space...leaving me to my doom. Bastards. I swear I heard the collective spider colony scream NO too. I managed to recover by grabbing onto the handle of a broken wheel barrel ( .....wow I didn't know we had one...ARGH...NO time for that now!!) As I righted myself and sprung forward I realized the handle was covered in smaller webs and that I had that spidery crap all over my hand and arm.....OH GOD NOOOOOOO.
I got out of there, slammed the door shut and sat for several minutes (after I scrubbed my hand with hot water and changed my hoodie) on the porch with a cigarette, staring at the gaps in the porch floor; thinking to myself.....they are plotting my end, aren't they?
This is what nightmares are made of.
If it wasn't for that cat....and her big green eyes staring at me through the slats of the porch....doing her best imitation of Puss in Boots from Shrek.....that shit would NOT have happened. I'm pretty sure her only hesitation from leaving on her own - back through the gap in the fence/screen - was she got in there and realized there was scary web standing between her and freedom. Bitch.
Needless to say I am contacting an exterminator Monday.
Until then I will sleep with a can of hairspray and a lighter.
Carry on.
