A New Test

First, let me apologize to those of you who cast a vote a few posts back. I will soon post the Life with Teenager topic for you. The rest of the subjects on the list have sort of faded from my mind so if you voted for another you'll have to just use your imagination.

Today's topic is related to one of those options I listed though! Send the Mortgage to the Arachnids was on the list but got only one vote. For those of you who know me very well at all you know I have issues with spiders. Truth be told I am a full fledged arachniphobe. In reaction to seeing spiders in the past I have screamed, run, thrown up, had uncontrollable shivers and goosebumps, had my hands go numb, and of course simply been frozen in fear. I acknowledge that these reactions are irrational. They have been in my experience also uncontrollable.

Well, our new house is a bit out in the country. We have an acre lot so there is room to breathe between us and our potential neighbors. It's beuatiful out here. Except for the spiders. We have Garden Spiders. Garden Spiders get BIG. The also weave beautiful webs. During the final weeks of construction my efforts to come out and get some painting done by myself were thwarted by Garden Spiders that seriously seemed to be garding every entrance to my house. It took me 45 minutes to get in the house that night.

So, God and I had a little chat. He's come through in a big way since then. We had our bug guy, the fabulous Don Hancock, come spray the week before we moved in. We haven't had much trouble with the larger spiders (larger to me being anything larger than a quarter) since then. However, after living in the house about three weeks we seemed to be overrun by smaller solid black spiders. Every night they would start running around not long after we put the kids to bed. One evening we saw and/or killed over ten of the little suckers. They ranged in size from pea to penny and I had no irrational reactions. As a matter of fact, God as given quite a dose of courage to me. Since moving in I've gone from irrational reactions to being able to kill them without flinching. I've even killed a few with a bare hand or foot. I've been quite proud. After today I'm guessing I was a little too proud because I got a new test.

I'm headed to the utility room to get Easy's whites out and I see it on the top of the door frame. A large spider you ask? No, no. It was much worse. It was an arachnid with an exoskeleton. Yep, that's right. A scorpion was in my house. How did I react? Frozen in fear with waves of goosepimples washing over my skin. I know enough about scorpions to know you don't want one stinging you. Once my initial panic subsided I had to come up with a plan. I got one of Easy's shoes and began the stalking. I'm not dumb enough to take a swing at it when it's over my head. Seriously, who wants a not quite dead scorpion landing on them? So I waited and watched. The creepy little thing ran up and down the door frame and all over the baby gate. Every time it vanished to the other side of the baby gate and then came back a new wave of goosepimples washed over my skin. The way it moves is almost pretty. I mean if it wasn't a creepy arachnid that can cause intense pain you could almost see the beauty of the way it seems to glide around as it waves its pedipalps (those are the pincher things at the front) around and sticks his tail up like a flag. To me though, it was just plain creepy. It was tough. It took about an hour, but I finally got it. A few smacks with one of Easy's big shoes would hurt anybody and it dfefinitely did the job on the scorpion.

So, tomorrow I will call the fabulous Don Hancock again and have him come spray for every pest imaginable. And tonight I am reminded that no matter how good I get at smacking spiders, there will always be things in the world that scare me. I am thankful that I will always have God to give me strength and courage and comfort. Oh, and in case you are wondering, the big kids are at my folks' house for the week so no one had to witness the crazy lady stalking a scorpion.