Creepy, crawly bugs
have always seemed to intrigue me & I spent many years advocating for them.
Why would you ever want to kill them? As many of you know, I used to catch bugs
of all sorts & put them safely back outside in nature. After living in my
sorority house for two years, I came to realize that I didn’t share this kind
of compassion for bugs with many people. Anyway, I am sad to report that moving
to Africa has changed my perspective on this issue.
Does killing bugs
bring you bad karma? I sure hope not, because after finding some really awful
looking bugs in Botswana, I have taken to killing all kinds of creepy crawly
things. It hurts my heart to kill them, and of course I apologize to them
before I smack them with my shoe, but I really can't seem to bring myself to
sleep peacefully in my house with them roaming around.
Here's a story of
why I am bringing this up.
While I was watching
a movie on Friday night, my dear friend Mia called me to chat about how I'm
doing. As we are talking, I look up to my candlelit ceiling only to find the
biggest spider I've ever seen in my life. Its body was easily the length of my
pinky finger and its long legs definitely contributed to my goose bumps. Poor
Mia is listening to me try to plan how I was going to kill it, which didn't
seem like an easy task since it was tucked back into the corner of the room
right up against the ceiling. I pulled one of my living room chairs over to the
corner & it ran behind my ruffled 1980's looking curtains. Ugh.
I pulled back the
curtain to look for it, only to find a miniature version of the little terror.
WHACK. Baby wasn't fast enough or intimidating to me. I sat back down on the couch, horrified that
I couldn't find the huge spider (how could it hide anyway? It was HUGE!) After
a few minutes passed, it crawled back over to where it was originally.
Both arms of the
chair supported me as I stood close enough to kill the spider on the ceiling. I
was scared to try to kill the spider because I didn't think one smack would be
enough to kill it… but right as soon as I could muster enough courage to whack
the spider - CRASH. My candle falls from the base it was standing on & I
find myself in the pitch black, within a foot of a huge spider. I screamed like
a little girl (I actually wasn't aware that I COULD scream like that…)
In the process of
trying to fumble and find new matches, I accidentally hung up on Mia, leaving
her to believe something horrible happened. I eventually managed to light my
candle & discover two things: (1) I now have candle wax all over my
computer keyboard from where the candle fell and (2) my candle will not stand
up on its own anymore. I go to my emergency bag, rummage through my belongings
and find my head lamp. Success!
Mia has called back
at this point to find out what caused me to scream bloody murder & hang up.
With my headlamp on, slipper in hand, and a friend laughing on the other side
of the world, I decided the whole game needed to end. Here goes! WHACK! Woo hoo!
But wait, where did it go?
That sucker was too
big to not be found… and it turns out I hit the wall right near him, so he
scampered across a whole side of my living room & ventured toward the other
wall. I finally got close enough to him again & one final time, WHACK. I got
it. I was so disturbed at what I saw after I killed it….
 |
| spider guts on my wall.. ick |
 |
| the dead spider. GROSSSSSSS. I also want you to know he deflated when I killed him... he was much bigger! |
I spent the next
half an hour of my life cleaning spider guts off my wall, disposing of it's
body, and scraping candle wax off my computer keys.
There are many
moments I wish people could be around to laugh at… so I thought I would share
this one with you. Try not to judge me for killing bugs now, especially after a
whole lifetime of advocating for how wonderful they are. Indeed, they are
wonderful and essential for our life on Earth, but at this point, I think I
need to stay sane and do what I can for my mental health. Trust me when I say
that no one could sleep peacefully with these spiders!
Love & Light,
TMV
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