Category: Wit’s End

No More Softie, Mr. Spider

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 5 Comments

I’m not the kind of girl that goes squealing for her man to kill a spider. Well, at least most days. Two days ago as I was busy getting ready for a long day when I noticed a spider tucked in the corner in the far reaches of my bathroom. Normally I would just climb up and take care of business, but I was in a hurry. I told the spider that I was giving him a reprieve—that this was his shot at freedom, and that I hoped not to see him again. Since these days it takes perhaps 1.4 seconds for me to forget something, I barely exited the bathroom before forgetting about my multi-legged visitor.

Flash forward to the next morning. While in the shower singing away–no funny microphones anymore–out of the corner of my eye I see three hairy, scary, spindly legs peeking out from the corner of my shower behind the spring rod that holds my shelves. I looked behind the rod to see into the very corner, and…holy cry. It was this huge spider with a body shape I couldn’t really make out due to the crazy legs akimbo. I gasped in sheer horror and instantaneously regretted my earlier Ms. Nice Girl approach to this damned arachnid. I mean, it was seriously ginormous. And angry looking. Not the least big appreciative of my earlier generosity. In my vulnerable state of nudity I weighed the option of just taking my handheld shower head and trying to nail the bastard. But the overly responsible side of me said, no…that I would get the wall much too wet doing so (yes, I KNOW I was in a SHOWER. Cut me some slack. I was dealing with a steroidal tarantula). Instead, I decided to keep an eye on the fiend and make sure to get him once I was in a better, dryer position to smash the crap out of him.

What followed probably should have been filmed—with generous black bars covering any sensitivities, of course. But it had to have been ridiculous to see. I would bend down to shave my legs and then do this wild convulsive move over my shoulder to keep an eye on Grizzly Adams. After one and a half legs’ worth of this kind of spasming, I did my ultra-cool move only to see…that…he…was…gone. Gone. The colorful expletives that came out of my mouth impressed even me. How could a mere second allow this demon to disappear? I looked all over…every shelf, all around the rod. He was nowhere to be found. At that point, screw wet walls—I sprayed my showerhead in that corner like an AK-47…and….nothing. No. Thing. More expletives. The fact that a large spider can reduce a grown woman into such psycho jello is amazing. And then…after several seconds—pretty nearly an eternity’s worth—the damn spider dropped onto the tub floor. Oh, I’d like to share that I collected myself and casually sprayed the mother down the drain, but I’d be being much too kind to myself. No, instead I will admit that Barney Fife was channeled through me on my final move of this incident. But he did go down the drain. And then, just to make sure, I kept spraying and spraying down the drain…wouldn’t want him clawing his way back up, right?

Of course, visions of the Demon Spider doing just that continue to haunt me. Could he still come back up? Did he have some sort of aquatic ability? Could he be so pissed that he is making it his life’s mission to come back and finish what he started? I don’t know. But let me guarantee one thing: there will be no more spider reprieves issued from this girl. Oh, no. Once was enough.

A Real Douchebag

~ Lisa Ancona-Roach ~ 3 Comments

…or how I learned that it’s important to ask if you don’t know.

As a young girl, on occasion I’d have to shower in my mom and dad’s bathroom instead of my sister’s and mine. It was always kind of special to be in the “master bath,” and there was this cool thing in their shower that we didn’t have in our regular one. This apparatus hung on the shower door. I figured it was some sort of cleaner (very astute assumption, what with it being in the shower and all). It was a hot water bottle with a hose connected to it that had an interesting looking white thing at the end. It had holes in it with a nicely rounded tip. I imagined it was a cool personal mini-shower, because when I filled up the water bottle, a lovely spray would come out of the end.

I thought it would make a fine microphone that would spout while I sang. Around that time, Tom Jones’ “She’s a Lady” was a popular song. My sister and I would always giggle at how when Jones performed it on TV, he would practically swallow the microphone on the “whoa, whoa, whoa, she’s a lady” part. We used to goof around and sing it while making the same gesture. Of course, this was a song high in my rotation when I would sing with my special microphone…And you can imagine how very close to my mouth this lovely little “spout” was…in fact, I can assure you that I would let the water that came out of it spray into my mouth. Yes. Therapy has been a part of my life.

My mom was not a proponent of talking directly about things related to “womanhood.” To put it in perspective, she never uttered the word “vagina.” It was either “birth canal” or, if she was feeling particularly forthright, “vaginal canal.” But never full-on vjayjay. So one day my mom came in while I was singing with my special mic and had a look come over her face that let me know that all was not right with the world. “What are you doing with that??” she asked… “Nothing. Just singin’.” She promptly suggested I end my song and not use it again. This was an era of child rearing where one did not hear a lot of “But whhyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?????” like one does nowadays. The look my mom gave said “follow directions and don’t ask questions.” And I did follow, and I didn’t ask. And she turned on her heel and left the bathroom. There was no follow-up to this conversation.

Though her behavior made me curious (and a little freaked out), I don’t think I pursued the answer right after that. In fact, I don’t even remember how I came to understand that my spray microphone was really a “feminine hygiene product.” It was probably the lovely Massengill Douche commercials that helped me piece the puzzle together…And when I did, I was absolutely mortified. It still makes me shudder to think that I got that indirectly close to my mom’s lady business.

The moral of this story? Never assume a microphone is a microphone. Though this experience alone didn’t provide an “a-ha moment” that taught me to make sure to ask questions, it did add to my overall desire to find answers to things I don’t know. Like looking up the word “offal” when I read it as a kid because I thought it was a weird way to spell “awful.” And…I kinda do find offal awful. Thanks, but I’ll pass on the haggis.

In essence—both real and metaphorical—life’s douchebags have taught me to seek the truth. And that is indeed good to know.