Please Pardon My French*

But OH SHIT! Look at what just came cruising through my living room! Do you see the light reflecting from its eyes? Do you see how it took an aggressive stance with me? If you do not see these things, please let me know because I will be more than happy to crop and enlarge this photo so you can see it. I'm now officially ready to leave Okinawa because I cannot handle the heart palpitations this causes. And also, I've been preparing myself for this possibility since we found out we were coming to Kadena because apparently an assignment here is not complete until you've had one of these monsters in your house.


Here's how it went: I'm just sitting here, writing my blog, humdy humdy hum and hey, there's something moving across my chair over there. And shit! It's big and totally alive and just flipped me off! And then the following occurred in about 2.7 seconds:

thought 1: wake up the husband despite the fact he sleeping due to illness because this requires extra help;
thought 2: no! sacrifice the slipcover and spray the hell out of it with the same ortho home defense that killed this spider's mother outside Lisa's house;
thought 2.5: oooh, that could require serious stain treatment on the chair and that will frustrate me tomorrow;
thought 3: isn't this why I bought a Dyson? That thing will kill it! Promptly extracted the vacuum from the hall closet, grabbed camera because who would've believed me otherwise, and then lost track of this arachnid a few times while attempting to photograph it without hyperventilating. Power up the machine, find the damn thing again (it really blended into the dark brown vinyl baseboard stuff) and shloop! GONE! Then I might have left the vacuum running for a few extra minutes to make sure it was dead. See? Dead!

Now onto the important matters, like where did this come from??? I just vacuumed tonight - moved all the furniture and everything (hence the dog fur in the above photo). No doors are standing open, no windows are open, no big flashing signs outside saying, "hey big ol' spiders! come in here!" And to all the geckos who are living in my house, where were you when I needed you most?


I must unwind now....somehow. It's past my bedtime and I can't bring myself to put my feet down on the floor. Nightmares are bound to follow....please think positive insect/arachnid-free thoughts for me. Thanks.


*yes, I'm aware that phrase isn't remotely French. If I actually knew any French, I'm sure I would've used it.