Tony Gallichan is Mildly Perturbed by... Spiders - part two (or, thank heavens this week is over!)
Viewers with long memories and short trousers may recall that I have previously used the pages of this website to let my feelings about arachnids be known to the world in general. However, I feel that it is my duty to let it be known that, after the intolerable heatwave...
They are back!!
To fit this into context, I'm going to tell you all about the week I've had.
Monday 11th August, 2003.
One of my cats, the Bandit, has bad eyes. All gooey and yukky. So, its off to the vets, after first begging a friend for a lift there. Its conjuctivitus. Lovely. The Bandit gets an injection and I get firstly a tube of gunk to inflict on his eyes - something for which he is developing a useful miss trust of me - and secondly, stiffed with a large bill.
Also, its still BLOODY HOT!
Tuesday 12th August, 2003
So, there I am after pining the Bandit down, putting gunk in his eyes and getting, my arms shredded, settling down to watch The West Wing on vhs - taped from earlier that evening. (Insert comments about dvd and tivo here)
It's still BLOODY HOT!.
Not for long though - a new form of temperature coolant is about to hove into view. For your delight, I shall paint you a wonderfully vivid picture. I'm sweltering in only a pair of old shorts, completely slobbing. My feet are up on the pouffe and I'm enjoying the show. Halfway through making a roll up ciggie I happen to glance down to my feet.
Sitting on the edge of the pouffe, between my feet is a F%^KING HUGE Evil Eight Legs.
Just sitting there.
Facing me.
Looking at me.
Gloating.
Now then, a bit of background. Until last November, I lived in a first floor, one room, dingy hole the landlords called a studio flat. Now, yes, I got spiders in there. But not too many and not really of too huge a size. My neighbour, lets call her Bert, is a martyr to large spiders. So is her neighbour, who, foolishly last year, would come to Bert's in the hope I'd be there to go and clear her house of a mutant beast. Hah!. Anyway, since moving to a ground floor flat and inheriting a rather nice, if small garden, and since getting a cat flap that has to stay open cos my mogs are too silly to work out how to go in and out with the flap shut, but not locked, and since its been
Bloody Hot!
I've been leaving my back door open, I have become vulnerable to penetration by enemy agents. (insert Fnarr fnarr here).
However, they haven't been too many or too large.
Until tonight.
This thing is bloody massive. And its staring at me as if to state, proudly and with a certain amount of malicious glee:
"Spider season is now upon you. Be afraid. Cower, puny two legs!"
So, there we are. Face to face, one of us thoroughly enjoying itself, the other a quivering lump of sweating, blubbery jelly.
I had to raise my legs and pull them away from IT. I start to do so and it moves! Scuttling down the pouffe onto the floor.
Ok, I think, I can do this. I slowly reach down for the waste paper basket. I manage to get it to a point just over the Evil Eight Legs. Just as I'm thrusting it down what happens?
The bloody Evil Eight Legs runs. Straight under my armchair.
Shit.
So, summoning whatever courage I have left, I manage to stand up and move away from the chair.
For the next half an hour I am stood, babbling like a loon to myself, phone book in hand, ready to crush the life out of the foul beast. I only saw it once more. It quickly ran out from the far side of the armchair, looked at me, laughing, then ran back under the chair.
Its still there.
In the darkness.
Waiting.
THE BASTARD!
So, since then, I have been rather nervous...in fact, the following night I really did not want to go into my lounge. However, I have since managed to sit in the chair and am slowly relaxing. Of course, now I've said that of course, it will no doubt return. Tempting fate, you see - a subject shall shortly return to.
Wednesday 13th August, 2003
I get my incapacity benefit. Pay day! Yayyyyyyyyy!
That evening I manage to loose most of it. I've no idea how I did that, but I got home to find my wallet empty except for twenty quid. Twenty quid to feed me and the cats for the fortnight.
By now I'm starting to feel very crappy indeed. I'll be ok as long as nothing else happens. I mean, I've still got the clear and present danger of a mutant Evil Eight Legs living in my lounge.
Friday 15th August, 2003
Wolsey, another of my cats isn't looking too good. I've been keeping an eye on him for a few days. Some pet owners get a kind of sixth sense about their pets. Someone else would say the cat looks fine, but the owner knows. He has lost a lot of weight, which considering that he is a tiny cat anyway means he is practically nothing now. He's off his food but is still drinking water. He's also incredibly lethargic. So guess what? Yup this means...
Saturday 16th August, 2003
Back to the vets. This time Adam is good enough to take me and Wolsey. I give them what money I have. Wolsey might have a virus, it might be his kidneys or it's his teeth. We have to wait and see.
You see, when my father came over a few weeks ago, I tempted fate. I happily told him that my cats hadn't needed the vet for a good while now.
That was a very stupid thing to do. (though I'm sure Purcell features will poo poo the idea of tempting fate, no scientific evidence, you see, lol).
So, you see, this week has been really, really crappy for me and my cats.
And as for that FUCKING spider......
DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH DEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATHDEATH DEATHDEATHDEATHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!
Ahem...
Tony Gallichan would be very grateful if those Cosmic Forces would kindly stop poking him with a stick for a giggle and go do something more interesting instead. Thank you.
Don't forget that you can discuss this, even tell us your own stories, in the Musings: The Comeback Forum!