Don’t bug me
Wednesday, 14 December, 2005
Last night, after 48 hours of not hearing from Ben and numerous text messages, he phoned at around 9 pm. Unfortunately I wasn't home to take the call because the Priors had invited me over for dinner. I had been contemplating going to the Chicks' Fix-It night at church (also part of FEVA Mission) but woke up in the morning and couldn't face the thought of making the effort to talk to strangers, no matter how good the cause. It sounds awful but my brain is not in the mood for mission and it's not because I don't think mission is good—I am all for mission—but I am tired and I need a holiday and I knew that if I went, I'd just be crabby and snap at people like I did on Sunday. Unfortunately I still have to work and look for jobs because of Newstart so no holiday will be forthcoming except for a day here, a day there.
The Priors are moving to college accommodation in January and I helped them get a head start on packing by tackling Steve's bookshelves. Cathy thought I was wonderful because it was a job that would have taken Steve weeks but I reckon it's always easier when it's someone else's stuff; when I was packing up our house to move from Wollongong, a friend came over to help me and I insisted on telling her about almost every single book she was helping me pack. I think the same thing goes for cleaning; I cannot face cleaning my bathroom but I would happily clean someone else's for them.
Anyway, I got home to find Ben's message (saying that his phone had died and that's why he hadn't called ... grr, that happened when he went to NTE too!) and Elsie's message about the spider. I called Elsie back but I'm afraid I couldn't really empathise with her; a spider is a spider—they're easy to kill and mostly easy to dodge if they try and bite you. Spiders are my friends; they eat the less appealing bugs who aren't my friends. One day on the way home from college Ben and I had a conversation about bugs; I asked him what were the Top 3 on his hate list and, after thinking for a long time, he said,
- Spiders;
- Hornets, bees, wasps and dragonflies;
- Mosquitoes.
Note that all of his are insects which bite or sting (reveals something interesting about Ben's psychology, don't you think?) I said, “Have you ever been stung by a bee/hornet/wasp/dragonfly?” He said, “No.” I said, “Have you ever been bitten by a spider?” He said, “No.”
I was once stung by a bee—as a child while we were still living at my aunt's place before my parents bought a house in Blakehurst. Or maybe I was there after school one day. Anyways, I was floating on some sort of lilo in my aunt's pool and my hand reached out to brush the side and got stung. I remember it being very painful. But I don't nurse a life-long grudge against bees. My Top 3 are:
- Cockroaches (because they leave their droppings everywhere, they breed like there's no tomorrow, they walk all over your food and they are generally very disgusting creatures. I cannot believe that they will survive a nuclear holocaust and that, if you chop off their heads, they will die by starvation);
- Mosquitoes (because they love my blood and I am allergic to them. I hate the way they buzz in my ear when I'm trying to sleep. Praise God for Mortein zappers);
- Ants (because they don't know when to stay out of your house; they'll crawl into your kitchen and get all over your food and they're so stupid, they run in circles).
Usually I'm pretty good with insects. I can go ahead and just kill them. I killed this massive cockroach the other night in our foyer—it was almost 4 cm long. Insects are easy to kill—you just squish them, or spray them and then squish them (I'm always afraid that they build up immunity to sprays). They're easier to kill than mice or rats. (I'm sorry, but mice are just really disgusting—mice droppings, chewing all sorts of things, including phone cables. Did you know that they eat their siblings, sparing just one female to be incestuous with? Ew!) I've killed Daddy Long Legs (the most poisonous of spiders except they can't bite you hard enough to kill you), Huntsmen (even fat ugly horrible ones) and Redbacks. I might draw the line at Tarantulas (gross) but surely Tarantulas are easier to kill than mice.
Sorry, this post has gone on for way too long and I didn't even say what I wanted to say. So I'll say it in a new post.
Blinks:
A way of funding writing in the future: pitch and idea and get people to support it.
Place where you can hire play equipment for parties, etc.
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
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