Thursday, November 7, 2013

Roommate

It was both my little brother's recent exodus from the house and an effort to maintain my tree-hugger-flower-child image that got me into this room-sharing situation a week ago.

I probably deserved it for staying up obscenely late and as the condescending angel on my shoulder pointed out, it was technically his home first: when I finally started to get into bed there was a little brown spider on my wall right above my pillow. He was doing that spidery thing where he was perfectly still but could shoot across the wall at any second.

I don't know why I chickened out. There's only one kind of spider that I am legitimately afraid of and that is the daddy long-legs, which this spider was not. He was actually probably the closest a spider can get to being cute; about the size of a nickel, little brown body and legs that were not freakishly long and spindly. 

Every time this happens to me at a despicable hour, I do the same thing. I stand totally still, staring at the spider, and speed-dial my brother on my cell phone. 
He answers groggily and I say something dramatic like "for the love of god, help me" in a quavery whisper and he sighs and hangs up and opens the door of his bedroom (which is four feet away from mine) and slouches over in his boxers to size up the spider. Then he gets a tissue and kills it and I thank him and apologize profusely until he closes the door of his room again. 

It was the perfect system because a) I did not have to put a part of my body near the spider, b) I would not feel guilty about killing a spider that did nothing to hurt me, and c) I would not get that withering look from my dad that he gives me when I wake him up late at night for stupid things.

Last month, however, I became the oldest-child-who-still-lives-with-parents because my brother left for college. Which was okay other than being a little depressing; there has been more food since he left and now I know for a fact that all of the pubic hair in our bathroom is my own. 

Anyway, when my little buddy showed up, I was not really sure what to do. I'm ashamed to admit that I did stand by my bed holding a wad of toilet paper like an idiot for several minutes, but I was too afraid that when I reached out to squash him, the spider would suddenly jump off of the wall and onto my arm or face or body.

When that didn't accomplish anything, I spent twenty minutes whispering and gesturing emphatically while my cat ran around the room in confused circles. 

Finally, in one of the most achingly passive decisions I've ever made, I decided that I had wanted to sleep downstairs on the couch anyway and the spider could have my bed.

The next morning, he was not on my wall any longer but was presumably still in my bedroom. I decided that I could be civil about the situation and share my good-sized amount of personal space with a spider. (Meaning that hopefully my cat would kill and eat it while I was at school.)

A couple days ago he showed up again in my curtains, and then in a rather eerie coincidence, appeared right when I was describing him earlier and for a long time was in a groove on the lid of my yarn-bin and I can't believe I'm saying this, but he had his little legs tucked up under him and it was kind of adorable. 

I've been calling him Dennis, which is the name of Cordelia's ghost roommate on "Angel." Unfortunately, my Dennis does not hand me cans of pop or put an extra blanket over me when I'm cold, he just skitters around my room making me nervous and magically not being seen by my stupid cat. I am one with nature.

Thankfully, Dennis was released into the wild tonight because my mother is a saint and carried him outside for me. Here is a video tribute that I made for Dennis. He may be living in the front garden now, but he'll always be in my heart.




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