Spiders, Frogs, and Fleas - NOT what Little Girls Are Made Of!

WHEN WILL IT END!!

I'm surrounded! They're out to get me! Just when I grew a backbone against the bugs and graduated to squashing the ants and crawly things with my bare feet they GANG UP ON ME!

Last night, the bug gang from the West Side Pond Story brought in the big guns. It's just me and Megan left in our dusty, cobwebby room in a compound structure (with no insulation. We're talking boards hammered to a frame. That's it.) shared with 25 Japanese girls. (Yes, there are only two bathrooms. TWO. Talk about "holding it"! I got bladder muscles like an ox!)

Okay. So it's nearing 10pm. Megan and I are turning in for the night when I hear her say, "Rachel. There is a huge spider on the wall." I assure her that daddy long legs are harmless and our friends. "No Rachel, this...gasp...is a...gasp...huge spider." She's starting to convulse, at this point I walk over to see a HUGE...gasp...hairy...gasp...long-legged spider making his insidious way down our wall towards our feet!!! It was about the size of my palm!

"What do we do? What do we DO?!!" Then wouldn't you know it, the bugger runs onto the floor!!! This is where Megan and I start to scream a constant blaze of bloody murder. You would think a werewolf was coming after us with a chainsaw and maple syrup (for enjoyment of our sweet white flesh). This spider is the fastest spider I have ever seen. With a couple flicks of his long hairy legs he's up on the wall again like a ninja star! Then he ran into the crack between the wall and the floor. We're saved!!

Or so we think...

We find the biggest bottle of Thai-style Raid and count our lucky stars we lost him in the depths of the dark underworld of the foundation. Megan sprays a strong current of poison into the crack just to feel safe. The creature comes BOUNDING OUT and runs between our feet!! He's a blur of brown and gray legs zooming by. Megan and I LOSE IT and run into the hall screaming like I've never screamed before. A stream of curse words exit our mouths that we have no control over. I think I definitely made up a whole new language with mine. I'm not one to have a potty mouth, but at this point I was possessed by the survival instincts of all my ancient ancestors combined. Too bad the relative I landed on was related to Jane Austen because I literally almost fainted. Don't laugh! It's true! We were shaking so bad and I could feel the blood and oxygen leaving my brain as that horrible monster was just chillin' on MY blanket on MY BED!

I started muttering something in half English/half Thai "shoe...ssshoe..." (Like a shoe would catch and kill this thing.) Megan was beyond herself. It was up to me. With my cold sweat I suddenly had a flashback to last summer. Images vivid and robust. Paul was away on business and I was left alone in LA to battle with a brown house spider in my darkened bedroom that my shoe bounced off of when I tried to smash it. Remember THAT email? Well this episode is ten times what that was! That was Rambo, this is Terminator VS Predator. That was Alfred Hitchcock, this is Steven King's entire family. That was Nerds, this, we're talking, Animal House meets Halloween.

We stood there in the hall looking through our doorway, panting, staring at the nightmare that was our new unwelcome roommate. Oh how we felt so crawly all over our bodies! Every twitch sent us shivering. Then he moved again! ZOOM! (More screaming) Now he was resting on Megan's pillow! Why didn't the guys hear us? Why was no one coming to our aid?! A Japanese girl casually walked up to us and saw the spider and smiled and sighed (showoff) she walked into our room which of course, duh, scared the spider into the corner of Megan's clothes pile. The girl sat (SAT!!) on the floor and picked up the clothes one by one. No spider.

We never found him that night. Instead Megan and I twitched and itched all night. Eyes wide staring up at the ceiling. Then it started POURING buckets of rain. Then thunder CRACKED so close to our room and Megan and I were further than ever from sleep. I counted 3 fleas on my bed that night. Massacred them all.

This morning I told the tale to all the boys that DIDN'T come to the rescue. Whatever, I was over it. (Yeah right.) A bit later, I was up the hill with Paul near the men's bathroom and showers. They have a spider too. He's huge but not as big as ours was, and he's not hairy either. Theirs hangs on his web (like a stupid spider should! Hmpf!) He was happily finishing his breakfast (not Paul, the spider) and then he dropped the beetle carcass to the ground. He sits on his web about waist high and as I was scooted close, marveling at his mysterious existence (how nice I am!) The thing does a contortionist back flip and squirts a milky liquid towards me with a distance of about 4 feet! Convinced that this milky liquid is acid and meant for me personally, I scream and run away. Paul screamed and ran too. The thing was like an evil clown! All happy on his web - then does a somersault on the gym rings and tries to poison me! What's with this place?!!


Oh believe me. There's more.

So, 9 hours pass. I arrive back at the compound after a long day of teaching "If You're Happy and You Know It" to Thai kids. Ironic. I enter my empty room. The cobwebs stir as usual. Every movement catches my eye. No spider. Oh but goody! A stream of red fire ants have made our inside window sill their marching path! How nice of them to consider my living space their work space. Silly red fire ants.

Raid.

Took care of that.

Looking forward to cooling down from a hot day I go to one of the showers. There's a big ole fat toad right in my way. I go to the other shower. It's dark and moldy in there, but whatever. Ahhh. Nice shower. I finish and go back to my room to dress. I enter. Look around. No spider. Total paranoia still at this point. I play it cool.
"Oh, shoot! I forgot to wash my face." I go back to the bathroom where at the sink I am blind in the splashes of water. Pause. Something is wrong. The last time my spidey sense kicked into gear I woke up in LA in the night to find the brown spider (from before who had eluded me) crawling across my floor!

In the bathroom, I look up. Right in front of me less than a foot from my face is THE SPIDER!! "AAAAAAAAAAH!!!! *$&%^!"

I ran to get Paul. Wait, no first I grabbed my camera and took this picture. Then I grabbed Paul. No, Dang! He's in the shower! I grabbed Alex, another volunteer. He walked slowly and casually across the compound to our place... meanwhile my life is in danger. He gets a converse sneaker. "What are you DOING! KILL HIM!!!" I yell. Alex has to hit the thing about 10 times before the thing dies. SAVED!

I believe firmly that that was the same spider as last night. If not, his family has it in for me. Paul says we only have one more week here. I might not last through tomorrow at this rate!

Update: So after writing this post and going to my room to sleep...sigh... another HUGE spider of the same species was waiting for me by the bathroom. This one much bigger than the two before. Whah-hah-haaaah!! Paul tried to kill it, but it just ran away. I'm surrounded!