One Day at a Time

Finally the weather is warming up and the trees and flowers are blooming. Spring is here. I awake in the mornings to the sweet sound of birds chirping and singing outside. It’s nice out there. It’s time to make it nice in here too.
When I first moved in and as spring got closer, my landlords asked if I had seen many bugs in the apartment. Each time they asked I replied that I hadn’t. However, the bugs seemed to come as quick as a light. One day I came home and opened the front door and there was a trail of slug slime from the corner of the door, across the front mat a few times like it wasn’t sure where to go and there it was dead in the center of the mat. It was almost three inches long and looked like a mini version of the monsters on the movie Tremors.
In the bathroom as I stood brushing my teeth I noticed an ant (just one) wandering aimlessly on the wall. Sadly, that was where he met his death.
Having shared space with many such bugs before (in Chile), I wasn’t too concerned with these, and other than the deaths I caused them, I approached them more like roommates then pests.
But then, what was that? Something moved on the closet door. I jumped up with a shoe and with one slap it was dead, a small brown spider. “Sorry”, I whispered. A little later another one moved across the floor in front of me until I stomped it.
Where are they coming from? I sweep the stairs religiously to keep them from coming in the front door. I’ve seen them in the leaves and debris as I clean it up. Cleaning there reminds me how Lori, my neighbor growing up, used to spray her driveway with a hose almost every day. It always seemed so anal and neat freak, but now makes sense. So I keep my stairs and entryway clean.
Still there was another, I tried to squish it with a shoe but a small ledge prevented the squishage and the spider leapt from where it was. I screamed and jumped back. “Did that spider just leap?” I thought to myself. It was incredible. It wasn’t just a fall, but a motion that led to a jump with outreached legs as if prepping for a land. But I didn’t see where it landed. My skin was crawling with the thought of how it jumped. I knew it had to be here somewhere, but where? Later, talking on the phone I looked up at the ceiling above the bed and there it was. Or so I told myself, so I could feel better about where the jumper went. Spider, meet shoe.
In the bathroom, I moved a new package of toilet paper that I had sat by the cabinet. Behind it sat a big dark brown spider that perhaps was stunned by my piercing scream because it didn't move but then met the shoe of death. I don’t know why it startled me the way it did, but I had goose bumps and for some reason didn’t pick up the dead spider. The next morning I stumbled into the bathroom with sleepy eyes. As I used the facilities, I looked at that spider carcass there. Without my glasses I couldn’t quite make it out, but it looked alive again. It had been shriveled and dead, but with my squinty vision, its legs looked extended and out like a living spider. I moved slowly around the corner, heart pounding and goose bumps all over. I grabbed my glasses and wiped them frantically. I stuck my head around the corner and gazed down at a bigger spider. It was dark brown like before, but it was not a reincarnated spider. It was a different spider crouched right over the carcass of the last spider. UUuggghHH! What in the world was it doing there? I reached down with a shoe and gave a whack, but the spider scurried back under the cabinet.
So that is it! A thorough Spring Cleaning. In addition to a bug bomb and some spray, everything is getting washed, everything moved, dusted, vacuumed and swept. Tan ones, black ones, brown ones, gray ones, big ones, little ones, fuzzy ones, and jumpers - I HATE SPIDERS.
Bye-bye spiders.