The Second Shower
My apartment used to be a dorm and because of this, I have an overabundance of bathroom facilities, including two showers. I had always considered the second shower to be a fun conversation piece ("hey, I've got two showers"--"neat"), but didn't believe it had much value beyond this. Until this morning, when I learned that there is a very good--necessary, in fact--reason for the existence of the second shower. This reason becomes clear when one stumbles sleepily into the shower at an obscenely early hour and is confronted by a spider the size of a small cat.
After one's mind recovers from the initial horror-induced shock, one can then gingerly extract the shampoo and soup and retreat to the safety of the second shower rather than doing battle with the spider stark naked and bleary-eyed.
Now, you may consider this to be the coward's response, but you have not dealt with these spiders. I have. They are very large and very fast and alarmingly agile. They have a truly eerie ability to dart nimbly out from underneath a descending shoe and unless I'm very much mistaken I heard one chuckling at me under its breath the other day as it skittered away.
People tell me I should welcome the spiders because they eat other bugs, including the hated silverfish. However, I still have an unacceptable quantity of silverfish in my apartment which leads me to the conclusion that either my spiders are defective or else vegetarian. Either way, they are not earning their keep. So I squash them. When I can. And when I'm not barefoot at 6 am.
2 Comments:
Dear Kate:
I have just entered the realm of bloggers. How could I have taken so long to find yours when M1 had told me about it ages ago. Anyway, I love your entries and particularly related to the two showers one. Julie was bitten by an anonymous spider this morning and learned from urgent care that in the U.S. spiders are on the march; they are moving north because rising temperatures up north (though we all know that global warming is a myth invented by "unscientific" scientists, right?)
Whoops, my resident scientist has just gone to bed -- I need to follow.
Hi Kate,
Don't know if you look at past posts much to see if you have new comments, but I just had to say that I loved this anecdote. So true and so funny!
I went to Woodstock for high school and graduated from there in 98. I've recently found another past woodstocker on blogger who has somehow found yours and two St. Olaf student teacher's blogs and therefore I have also found them and have very much enjoyed reading about familiar India escapades. :)
The spiders, monkeys and silverfish are indeed disturbing foes. Enjoy your time in the ever amazing land of India!
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