Cheeky Monkeys

I think I’ve mentioned previously that I moved into a new house back in July. What I haven’t mentioned previously is that the house has a tendency to be invaded by creatures from time to time, especially the kitchen. Now, I’m accustomed to meeting the occasional spider in the basements of houses I’ve lived in, but this is just out of control. There are literally spiders everywhere. I’ve killed several on the walls of my bedroom, leaving their remains as a warning to others, but the kitchen is a different story. My housemate placed horse chestnuts throughout the house to ward off the dirty beasts. I hate to say that despite her belief in their magic spider repellant properties, the konkers haven’t eliminated the scourge. This has made for a number of run-ins. Unfortunately, there are several different styles of spider disposal in the house, which has caused some mild contention. Catherine refuses to deal with them at all. As stated earlier, I prefer to smash them with a shoe and leave the carcass where it sticks. Charlie prefers to put a cup over it, slide a paper underneath it, and carry the spider outside. (I’ve wondered sometimes how many times Charlie has escorted the same spider outside.) Contributing to the problem is the fact that it now gets dark at about 4:30 in the afternoon, so there is plenty of nightly darkness in which the spiders can emerge. The bad news is that the bathroom is through the kitchen, so an appointment with death (for the spider) is not always avoidable.

Which bring me to the even worse news. As much as I dislike spiders, I prefer them to the other frequent invader we get in the kitchen: slugs. I blame my mother for my hatred of all things slug and snail. Her loathing of the slimy monsters boarders on the pathological. Being raised in this environment, naturally I have a warped opinion of the disgusting invertebrates. As horrible as the slugs and snails have been to my mother’s plants, at least they stayed outside. I cannot say the same about the English slugs. I have had several evening encounters with them in the kitchen. I can’t for the life of me figure out how they’re getting in the house. It just shouldn’t happen; I don’t care how moist the environment. The first time it happened I thought it was a fluke. The next time, I was perplexed. The last time, I was completely disgusted. The problem that time was that I stepped on it, in the dark, in the middle of the night, in bare feet. I was on my way to the bathroom and I had decided not to turn the light on or wear my slippers. Rookie mistake. (I thought I’d learned my lesson in Hong Kong when I didn’t wear my shoes to the bathroom one night and stepped on a cockroach, but I guess I allowed complacency to dull my instincts.) I knew the moment I felt the squishy sliminess just what had happened, even in my dazed awake-in-the-middle-of-the-night semi-consciousness. Wiping the slime from my foot, I tried to work out whether or not I’d stepped on it completely enough to kill it. I finished my bathroom business and re-entered the kitchen to assess the carnage. In the harsh light of the fluorescent bulb, it was revealed that I had indeed crushed the life from the nasty creature. As I scraped the flattened body from the kitchen floor, I decided that I would never again use the bathroom in the middle of the night.