Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Intruder

Last night we can home from our Cinco De Mayo feast at a local restaurant with our bellies much much too full of only so-so food. We sleepily drug ourselves through the door and downstairs to help kids brush their teeth. As we passed the back door my husband noticed that it was unlocked. That is very disturbing in these parts and something we try never ever to do. Who wants to find a naked crazy homeless person in their home (like this woman?), or something like that. Nothing looked disturbed downstairs so we continued getting the kids in bed, though I kind of wish someone had come and stolen my dilapidated entertainment center so I could get a new one.

Later it was just DSSH, Cookie, and me upstairs talking in the kitchen. DSSH went to enter the hallway towards the bathroom when I saw him jump back and stand staring into the hallway. I was sure there was a man holding a gun or something just as bad. It was worse. It was a black, crazy, freaky, 3 inch big spider resting just below eye level on our wall. We stood there staring, then laughing, then nervously trying to decide what to do with it. The spider must have been just as freaked out or he was sedately planning on how to eat us, because he wasn't moving either. I finally grabbed a big glass and a piece of paper and trapped it in the cup. I made DSSH slide the paper under because baby was threatening to make me puke up my tortilla chips. *shudder* It started to spaz out in the cup a little bit. Oh, and Cookie was having a grand ol' time just watching her parents act like wimps. Then hubby made the offhand comment that it looked like a hobo spider. I handed him the cup and ran to the computer and darned if he wasn't right. So my concerns of having a crazy hobo in our home were validated. Normally we just release our spiders back outside, but when you see pictures like this (scroll down to the bottom of the page) you just want the thing dead as dead can be. We flushed it, talked extensively about how freaky it was, sent Cookie off to bed to have nightmares, and got ourselves ready for bed as well. I sent Jon to go check on the kids and he came back rather quickly. "You aren't going to believe this..." Apparently the hobo had brought her boyfriend and he was trying to set up home by our shoe basket. Though he only measured in at a measly 2 1/4 inches he was still rather freaky himself. DSSH decided to kill this one his way, by chucking shoes at it while I laughed and shrieked.

As if going pee 5 times a night weren't annoying enough, now each pot stop takes 5 times as long as I carefully search every shadow and corner for a hidden hobo spider. The lesson here, folks, is to always, always keep your doors locked tight against intruders. But DSSH says that the lesson here is not to keep telling your husband the correlating scenes from Arachnophobia as he tries to save you from the killer spider or as he tries to go to sleep later that night.

25 comments:

Packer Family said...

Oh man I hate spiders! I got the heeby jeebbies just reading this. Glad no one got hurt.

Awesome Mom said...

Ugh! Spiders freak me out.

just jamie said...

Yugh. Now I'm itchy all over.

And I want to read the post about the naked homeless intruder, because I SWEAR the same thing happened to me. I need to write about it.

Amber M. said...

I got the heebie-jeebies just reading your post. HATE spiders.

Is the naked crazy homeless person story this one??

http://scribbit.blogspot.com/2008/02/homeless-in-alaska.html

Annie said...

I am just totally creeped out over here! Totally. Creeped. Out.

Ugghghghghghhggh!

An Ordinary Mom said...

Yuck!

Ice Cream said...

Amber M. Thank you for giving me the link, I thought I had seen it on Scribbit but couldn't find it this morning. I added it into the post.

L said...

I don't hate spiders, but I don't want them walking around my house either. If I happen to see one I capture it and throw it outside lol.

Anonymous said...

Ugh. I HATE bugs...the bigger and darker and hairier, the worse.

we finished our basement into a playroom... and it is nice and bright down there now. Only problem is that for about two weeks every fall, before the weather gets cold enough to kill them, we get these gigantic frigging "camel crickets". they look like hobo spiders (they are HUGE) and they effing JUMP.

they have an uncanny sadistic urge to jump right as you're approaching it with a rolled up Vanity Fair - you need extra pages to kill those suckers, People just won't cut it. AND they usually jump right on me!!!

If I think about this much longer I am going to turn into a crazy naked homeless woman, and take a nice nap on your couch in revenge.

Charlotte said...

I SO do not miss the nasty huge spiders you guys have out there. I just shivered all over reading your post. Time to get out the sticky traps, girl!

Richelle said...

We had hobos all the time at my house growing up. We had brown carpet down in our basement so it was hard to see them and those nasty things would crawl so fast across there. Yuck! Did you really watch Arachnophobia? I would not have dared. I think I would still have nightmares.
Like Manager Mom, be glad you don't have camel crickets or spider crickets (I think they are the same).

CC said...

YUCK!!!! You are totally freaking me out here!!!!!!!

Sucharita Sarkar said...

spiders are definitely scary, esp. large hairy ones, but I totally freak when lizards are around.

Unknown said...

Ugh, sweetie I'm sooooo sorry! Though I'd rather have spiders than reptiles or rodents every day.

And you're only up five times in the night? Already you're doing better than I....

Jeanette said...

Ugh! Hobo spiders. Our first home was a basement apartment in Rexburg and it was crawling with Hobo spiders. I hate spiders! We bought those spider bug bomb things and set them off practically every month. Those things just would not die!! It is amazing that we never got bitten. Not so amazing that we only lived there 6 months...

Michal said...

i had a terrible run in with gargantuan, killer roaches (ok, the killer part is probably an exaggeration) at my mom's last week and haven't slept well since. i love that your spiders came in through the unlocked back door!:) hope you don't run into anymore hobos.
by the way, i hate that i have such a thing about bugs and spiders that i have to turn on the lights when i go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. it is such a pain to have phobias.

Ice Cream said...

Michal,
I totally hear you on phobias. I need to write a post about my fear of slopes. It is very inconvenient.

Angela said...

Aughhhh! I would not be able to sleep! You had me very scared in the first paragraph!

Tama said...

LOL! The whole story was fantastic! My imagination filled in all of the pictures of the whole evening. :)

Amy Y said...

Oh how I wish I hadn't read this right before going to bed!! How scary! I think this might be scarier than a human intruder!!! I hate spiders ~ especially flesh eating ones!

Glad you found them before they bit one of the chitlins or you!! Whew!

Sonja said...

Aughh! Aughhh!

Erika said...

YUCK!!!
Once I was babysitting (age 14 probably) for my family (5 siblings) and there was this HUGE spider on the floor of the hallway, just waiting for me to try and pass. I screamed (of course!) and my baby brother came to rescue me. Picture a 4 year old boy running into the computer room, grabbing the entire ream of paper, running back, throwing it on the floor-covering the spider-and jumping around on top of all the paper for about 3 minutes.
My hero!

Unknown said...

Eeeeeew gross! I hate spiders. At my house he would have been a splattering of guts on the wall cause he would have instantly met the business end of a shoe. Your way was much less messy, but I would not be able to sit on that toilet without thinking it was going to come crawling out and bite me on the rump.

Kim @ TheBitterBall

Becky Frame said...

This is hilarious!

Jennifer @ Fruit of My Hands said...

We have hobos in our basement and they are SO freaky.