Creepy Creepy Spider...

I work outside with groups in a pretty woodsy area, and I love my job. I enjoy being outdoors, the bugs don't bother me too much and when the weather is nice, it's the perfect place to be. Now it has it's moments - standing in the rain for 2 hrs belaying kids in tee-shirts is not the best part of the job, but I don't do my job for the perks.

A couple of weeks ago, we had weather just like that - 80 mph winds and torrential downpour all week long. It also happened to be the week I was working doubles all week long. I came out pretty unscathed, although a bit water-logged and thought the worst was past. But I've noticed there's been some residual effects. The worst of it being the mosquitoes! Normally, they don't bother me much. I don't know if it's my diet or the fact that I don't have much meat on my bones, but I can stand with a group outside and have one person get 10 bites in the first 5 minutes, and I won't have but one by the end of the day. I don't question this, just count my blessings and try to refrain from eating bananas right before I go to work.

So, last night A (my roommate while M is away) and I decided to hang out with me and watch a movie I had rented. Just as we were getting settled down to watch it - we kept finding all these mosquitoes in the house! We don't know where they came from. We've surmised that we must have left the door open a bit too long, but it was really irritating. I spent the whole movie swatting myself because I kept feeling them land on me. I think we managed to kill them all by then end of the night. This morning, I woke up with three new bites on my arms. *grrr* And of course, every time I itch, I'm sure it's another.

The other phenomena brought on by all the rain is the influx of outdoor insects...inside. My rule is, if I'm on your ground (outside) - you win. I leave you alone. I walk away. You live. If you're on my ground (the house) - that's a whole other ballgame. This week, I've been finding more spiders in the house than I have in the past 3 months - and that's with all the cleaning I've been doing for showings!
I am truly not a fan of spiders. Usually if I find one, I calmly talk to it and say, "I will be leaving the room for a while, and when I return, I expect you to be gone or deal with the consequences." and then, I leave the room. If it doesn't listen to my warnings, then I feel I am not responsible for my actions... If I return, and the offender has not removed itself, then I usually call to M. When he was here, it was pretty easy - I'd call for him and he'd remove the spider (He thinks it's bad luck to kill a spider in the house), gently taking it outside. Now that he's in SC, I have to be tougher.

With the small ones, I find something that keeps my fingers/foot/body part as far away from the spider as possible, and smoosh it, (hopefully with no guts left behind on the carpet/floor/wall) and then throw it in the toilet. I'm always afraid I didn't REALLY kill it, and if I throw it in the garbage can, it'll crawl back out and extract revenge on me. A good flush of the toilet make me feel much more comfortable, but I really don't like dealing with them either way.

With the bigger ones.. well I've only had to deal with one, I think it was a funnel web or grass spider. I don't know how it ended up in the house. It was BIG. I sang to it:

"creepy creepy spider...
I don't want you here any more
Creepy creepy spider...
pleae crawl out or towards the door.."

But it didn't leave. I even tried vaccuming near it (couldn't vaccum it up - see garbage can comment above)
Luckily A was here, and she scooped it up in a jar with a postcard and took it out to the end of the backyard for me. It's nice to have another spider-guard around. But even so, the influx of spiders is freaking me out a little. The only thing worse to me is what I call the house centipedes, which enjoy - guess what..dampness. *sigh* I guess it's a loosing battle until it dries out a bit. In the meantime - spiders beware!