Amberance and The Visitor (a comedy in three acts)- Part II

Part II

I'm really not a fan of doing laundry, which is why I own enough underwear that I can go 3 weeks to a month without washing clothes. The drawback to this is that by the time I sack it up and do my laundry, there are TONS of clothes. Enough to usually require me to make several trips when transporting them from house to car, car to laundromat, laundromat to car, and car to house. Also I will be standing there listening to Spanish language television and folding them for a really long time.

Aside from the Mexican soap opera blaring from all corners of the room, laundry goes fairly well. I have enough laundry to use the Big Washers, which for some as yet unexplained reason, I think are really neato. So I'm happy about that. I also get a surprise call from my friend Minnick in Cleveland, who may potentially visit me late next week, so I'm also happy about that. And by the time I'm done washing and drying my metric ton of laundry, almost everyone else has left, and I have the folding table all to myself. So I'm happy about that. While I'm merrily folding my underwear in thirds (not even kidding you), Fish calls. He's on his way home from work, and I tell him how the laundry's going and that my buddy called and so forth. Fish says, "So what about your visitor?" I am momentarily perplexed. We had just discussed the possibility of Minnick visiting, so he couldn't be talking about that. And boys don't typically refer to women's periods as a "visitor" (as we girls do), and in fact, generally don't bring up such topics at all, so I'm pretty sure he's not talking about that.

It is then that I remember: There is a spider on my porch. And it's dark. It will be waiting for me. Waiting for me to struggle up the steps with heavy bags of laundry, repeatedly. Waiting for it's chance to jump on my head and Eat Me. "Oh God," I say in dismay. "Um, can I sleep at your house?" This would seem almost reasonable (almost, because who sleeps over someone else's house because of a spider on the porch?) except for the fact that Fish lives a solid hour away from me, and it is now 10:30. And I have to be at work early. Which gives me another idea. "Oh! Or, I could just go to work now, and sleep under my desk. That might work. There's no spiders in the Loop."

"I'm pretty sure that's not true," said the wise Fish.

I park my car while talking to Fish. Fish tells me about some games he's playing and we chat amicably. Ten minutes later he asks "Are you still in your car?"

Me, sheepishly, "Yeah. But it's because I was watching this little bunny hop around."

"Amber, you have to go in the house."

"No. I'm sleeping in the car. With my laundry." I had already determined that I was going to have a hard enough time getting myself back in the house without having to lug a clumsy, not to mention heavy bag of clothes up the stairs. It would slow me down and give the spider more surface area to use in order to get ON ME. My plan was to leave the laundry in the car overnight, and bring it in the following evening, when it was still light out and I could watch for the spider. I had a few scraps of clothes still in the house that I could wear to work the next day. Assuming, of course, I could find the inner strength to go in the house.

"You are not sleeping in your car. Go in the house."

I meandered my way towards home. Passing my neighbors, whom I've never spoken to, I wondered if maybe they wouldn't mind my crashing on their couch for the night. I stood at the bottom of the stairs and looked up, paralyzed. He's up there. Waiting for me. Waiting to jump ON ME. And I realized that as I stood there quaking with fear, directly above me was an enormous tree. And everyone knows that trees are giant spider army bases. Any second one or 50 of them would be parachuting onto my head. I was trapped between a spider infested tree and a spider infested porch with nowhere to run. I narrated for Fish, in case something happened to me, so he could explain to the police when they found my half-eaten corpse halfway up the stairs. "Ok. Ok, Fish? I'm going. I'm going up the stairs right now. I can't see anything. Oh God. What if they've built a web across the stairs and I walk right into it in the dark?" (Seriously, these are things I was actually thinking. In my head, I imbue them with an overwhelming intelligence, malice and superior organizational skills. And so, so much evil.) I felt something touch my head. "AAAAAAAGGHH! AAAAAAGH? WHAT WAS THAT? WHAT TOUCHED MY HEAD? (pause for hyperventilation) All right. Ok. I think I'm ok. I'm pretty sure that was just a tree branch. All right, I'm almost there..." Fish's patience is absolutely astounding, I'm telling you.

After my flight through the gaunlet of terror, I slammed the door behind me and locked it (you know, so they can't turn the knob and just walk right in). I made Kristen sniff my head for any spiders that may have transferred there from the tree branch, but she didn't find anything she wanted to play with, so I figured I'd lucked out on that one. Fish kindly listened to me wax psychotic about how they have magical powers and can fit into tiny spaces and come out huge again on the other side, and that I could feel them crawling on me,and about how they are Dastardly, in the way the villains from the pre-talkie cinema days were dastardly, laughing maniacally and twisting their mustaches while the train bears down on the damsel they tied to the tracks.

Finally Fish talked me into going to bed, and I fell asleep, waking only occasionally with the sensation of evil eight legged monsters crawling all over my skin...