Lightning strikes and Kung Fu Spiders
This is the third time I’m trying to write this article, and I’m about ready to take a baseball bat to this computer. The first time, the computer suddenly shut off during a thunderstorm, and I lost what I was writing. Grrr! The second time, my firewall gave an alert message that my browser was trying to use Microsoft Word to connect to the Internet. I thought that was odd, so I clicked on the button labeled “Deny,” which was a terrible mistake, because when I clicked the button to Publish this article, it would not Publish it, and it would not allow me to go back to retrieve what I had already written. GRRRRRRR!!!!
In addition to that, the thunderstorm turned off my clocks, so I had to re-set them. Actually, I only had to re-set 3 of them, because, after many frequent ordeals of having to re-set all my clocks because of the fact that the electricity goes off all the time (mostly due to thunderstorms), I have now replaced most of my clocks with battery-operated ones. And I have never learned how to change the time on my oven clock, so whenever the electricity goes off, it re-sets to 12:00, waiting to be activated, so I have to wait until its actually 12:00 (either noon or midnight) to activate it.
It has been raining every day here, which has caused my grass…um, I mean, my WEEDS…to grow at an accelerated rate. They are now above knee-level. My lawnmower is broken, and I don’t know if I can afford to pay another $50-$75 to have someone come and mow my lawn one time. Maybe I’ll check around to see if anyone has a goat that needs babysitting. That way, he can eat my grass and weeds, and I can get paid for watching him.
The thunder and lightning scared a spider out of his hiding place, and he was crawling up the inside of my window, so I hit him with a fly swatter. No effect. He must have used some blocking technique formerly known only to ancient Chinese Shaolin spiders, handed down from generation to generation, secretly guarded, and never taught to foreign spiders. I got a paper towel and folded it a couple times to grab him with it and crush him. He dodged my attack. I tried again to grab him in the paper towel and crush him. Again, he evaded my attack. His Kung Fu was good. I tried a third time. Clearly he had superior fighting skills, because once again, he out-maneuvered me. Ah, but I had a secret weapon of my own, handed down from generation to generation, known only to those select few who have lived in spider-infested houses. Yes, you guessed it…..I brought out the secret, deadly “Spider Spray.” With one accurately placed spray of my deadly weapon, my worthy opponent was finally defeated.
My mom’s friend was not so lucky. She walked into a spider’s web while going out to her car. Even though she is in her 60’s, she was able to fight through the webbing. As she got into her car, she was still pulling spider webs out of her hair. Once on the road, she forgot all about it. Until she looked in the rear-view mirror. There, sitting on her shoulder, was a spider the size of your open hand. No joke. Swerving through traffic like a mad woman, almost hitting 3 pedestrians and 5 cars, she finally pulled over, flung the door open, jumped out, and began flailing about and swinging her arms like some wild, primitive, tribal dancer, slapping at her shoulder in an attempt to knock the monster spider off her shoulder. Finally, drenched with sweat and breathing heavily, with the spider nowhere to be seen, she got back into her car, shaking like a leaf. Even today, she is overcome with fear and dread every time she re-tells her ghastly account. For years afterward, she would have horrible nightmares about the incident, only to awake suddenly in the night, drenched with sweat, thinking that a spider was on her, attacking her.
OK, actually, it only happened last week. Still, when she called my mom and told her about it, she said she was still shaking.
So, the next time you get in your car, you might want to take a quick glance in the rear-view mirror and make sure there are no huge spiders sitting on your shoulder.
