Perception

Since this move is just totally sucking eggs, let me lighten the mood with a little story that happened on the other side of the pond before we left the US.

It was moving day and there were four movers at my house, all extremely friendly and chatty. As I flitted from room to room making sure they took the right things, didn't pack the wrong things and checking they didn't need water or anything, I would pause in each room for a few and strike up a conversation with each guy.

Guy-in-my-living-room was one of my favorite.  He was hilarious and kept picking on me because I guess he and his wife had wanted to rent our house, but when they called the realtor, they found it had already been rented.  Now that he was inside, he kept going on and on about how nice it was and how he would sure like to rent it.  We talked about the neighborhood, the township, his kids, my kids, etc. After awhile, I felt like I knew him.  But nothing let me know him like this one small moment that totally re-defined my perception of him.

He had just pulled my bookcase away from the wall and was wrapping the edges and corners so they didn't get chipped.  He flipped it over on it's side to wrap it in bubble wrap and promptly jumped back in a panic.

"Do you have a paper towel!!??", he practically shrieked.

I was standing half in the kitchen, half in the living room and did not have a proper view as to what he was looking at.

"Sure, just let me..."

"...because you've just got a nest of spiders here! Yes, A NEST OF SPIDERS!"

I could hear the panic rising in his voice, bordering on hysteria.

Now, let's pause for a moment and discuss this.

I live in the woods.  We have bugs.  We have spiders.  I do clean fairly regularly and was puzzled as to how an entire nest of spiders developed without my knowledge, but it was the corner of the living room where there is a crack in the foundation and also where the dog's bed had been.  Perhaps, I had just overlooked it.

Now, when you hear the term, "nest of spiders", what you do you envision?

Because I saw in my mind's eye a huge, elaborate web with a massive spider and her forty bazillion babies crawling all over the place a la Charlotte's Web.

I also knew that even though he asked for a paper towel, that based on his reaction and the fact he was half a breath from dancing on a chair screaming like those Tom and Jerry cartoons where the woman in an apron is standing on the kitchen chair screaming over a mouse, it was going to be ME and not him that was going to have to take care of the "spider nest".

I don't like spiders either.  They creep me out with all their legs.  But, as a military wife, I don't always have the luxury of having someone else kill it for me.  Heck, I usually don't even want to wait until my husband gets home in the evening lest I lose the sucker and then not know where he is in the house.  Leaving the spider for later almost always conjures an image in my head of the spider growing ten sizes bigger in just minutes (like the Grinch's heart when he finds Christmas), crawling across the ceiling above my bed and then falling into my open, sleeping mouth.  Is that just me?

Alright, I digress.

So.... I am mentally preparing for this scenario where I am going to have to kill a spider and her millions of bratty offspring with nothing but a paper towel while a six foot, two hundred and fifty pound black man dances, screaming on my tv cabinet.

I grab a paper towel, walk over to where this man is staring in complete and utter horror and peek around the corner of the bookshelf.

What I found was not a spider, not her offspring, but just that sticky cobwebby stuff stuck to the corner.  No spider, no babies, just some dust, a dead fly and an ant or two stuck in the sticky cobweb.

I calmly wiped it away with my hand and walked away.

Man-in-my-living-room said, "Wow!  You aren't scared of spiders!!?"

And I puffed up my chest, smiled and said, "No! Spiders don't scare me!!"

I think I won his respect.

And he totally lost his cool points with me.