My driving was almost over. I went to Virginia to visit my mother and her husband. Imagine my surprise when I shared with my mother my mutant spider story (see #9) and she said, "Oh those are jumping spiders." Jump, I thought to myself, those ugly things jump? I'm so glad I didn't know that when I was trying to kill it, I would have been even more mortified. She also shared how they jumped at you and come out at night. So there I was with a new reason to sleep with the lights on. I had a lovely visit with my mother and even got to see my brother and his family who had come down from Pennsylvania. But soon it was time to go back and face the mutant jumping spiders.
After having 1 more face to face encounter with this beast of an insect, the exterminator was called upon to rid me of the frightfest. After the contract guy crawled under the house I was informed that the crawlspace was infested with camel crickets, aka cave crickets, spickets, spider crickets...the list goes on. I assumed the picture that he showed me on his cell phone was from the internet so that I could see what he was talking about. However, I almost fainted when he told me it was an actual picture he had taken while under the house. These things ate other bugs, each other, and even their own legs for food during desperate times. They also liked carpet, clothes, curtains, and furniture too. They left droppings as waste, had very bad eye sight, and jumped at their predators with their ugliness to ward them off. None of the pictures do any justice as to how ugly these things are in person. My saving factor was they were pretty happy with the dark, cool, crawl space. Plus, there was also plenty of food down there with the population boom. Needless to say the exterminators got a contract that day and the spraying began soon afterwards. To this day, I am a personal friend of the man who rid me of these awful creatures and allowed me to stay in the home and sleep with the lights out.
While there for the first month, family came to visit to help make the house a little more livable. After the family had come down to clear the garage of old stuff, it was then that reality set in. The time had stood still long enough for me to realize that I was officially by myself. All boxes had been cleared and things put away before I realized that (real) crickets and the sound of my beating heart and breathing was all I ever heard. I was in a new environment without my children and the closest family member was 3 hours away. Empty Nest Syndrome had hit me hard, for I was willing to drive 3 to 4 hours just to be around family again. It was overwhelming for me. I wasn't employed yet and I had too much time on my hands, the loneliness was more than I could bear. The only human contact I had was when I was on the phone. I felt like Tom Hanks at times in the movie Cast Away. Except my Wilson ball was a Barbie doll and even though she was my co-pilot (see #3) I really didn't talk to her.
Since the Trail of Tears situation (see #7 & #8), I found myself thinking about all my past failed relationships. That became the cream on top of the Empty Nest Syndrome. The perimenopausal was the cherry on top. I'll admit it now but back then I wanted no one to know that my definition of a good day was when I opened my eyes and didn't start my day by crying. There were two more factors at work against me, the 3 hour time difference and sleep apnea. Eventually, a saving factor became doing slight renovations on the house. I started painting it on the inside. Not only did I paint the living room and 3 bedrooms, but I was also joined by workers tearing out the 30 year old carpet and installing hardwood floors - people, real people! They were extremely slow workers, 2 of them, who worked sporadically from Thanksgiving lasting almost to New Years Eve. It's the only time I didn't care about the speed of a job. But I was slightly concerned about putting the house back together again, since everything had to be moved out of every room to lay the floors.
To Be Continued...
After having 1 more face to face encounter with this beast of an insect, the exterminator was called upon to rid me of the frightfest. After the contract guy crawled under the house I was informed that the crawlspace was infested with camel crickets, aka cave crickets, spickets, spider crickets...the list goes on. I assumed the picture that he showed me on his cell phone was from the internet so that I could see what he was talking about. However, I almost fainted when he told me it was an actual picture he had taken while under the house. These things ate other bugs, each other, and even their own legs for food during desperate times. They also liked carpet, clothes, curtains, and furniture too. They left droppings as waste, had very bad eye sight, and jumped at their predators with their ugliness to ward them off. None of the pictures do any justice as to how ugly these things are in person. My saving factor was they were pretty happy with the dark, cool, crawl space. Plus, there was also plenty of food down there with the population boom. Needless to say the exterminators got a contract that day and the spraying began soon afterwards. To this day, I am a personal friend of the man who rid me of these awful creatures and allowed me to stay in the home and sleep with the lights out.
While there for the first month, family came to visit to help make the house a little more livable. After the family had come down to clear the garage of old stuff, it was then that reality set in. The time had stood still long enough for me to realize that I was officially by myself. All boxes had been cleared and things put away before I realized that (real) crickets and the sound of my beating heart and breathing was all I ever heard. I was in a new environment without my children and the closest family member was 3 hours away. Empty Nest Syndrome had hit me hard, for I was willing to drive 3 to 4 hours just to be around family again. It was overwhelming for me. I wasn't employed yet and I had too much time on my hands, the loneliness was more than I could bear. The only human contact I had was when I was on the phone. I felt like Tom Hanks at times in the movie Cast Away. Except my Wilson ball was a Barbie doll and even though she was my co-pilot (see #3) I really didn't talk to her.
Since the Trail of Tears situation (see #7 & #8), I found myself thinking about all my past failed relationships. That became the cream on top of the Empty Nest Syndrome. The perimenopausal was the cherry on top. I'll admit it now but back then I wanted no one to know that my definition of a good day was when I opened my eyes and didn't start my day by crying. There were two more factors at work against me, the 3 hour time difference and sleep apnea. Eventually, a saving factor became doing slight renovations on the house. I started painting it on the inside. Not only did I paint the living room and 3 bedrooms, but I was also joined by workers tearing out the 30 year old carpet and installing hardwood floors - people, real people! They were extremely slow workers, 2 of them, who worked sporadically from Thanksgiving lasting almost to New Years Eve. It's the only time I didn't care about the speed of a job. But I was slightly concerned about putting the house back together again, since everything had to be moved out of every room to lay the floors.
To Be Continued...
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| A camel cricket the actual size I faced. |
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Everything shoved together waiting to be put back again.
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That is an Ugly Ugly scary spider.
ReplyDeleteWell, officially it's a camel cricket and it's ugly enough to scare off bigger animals plus it jumps at whatever comes toward it instead of fleeing. If you google camel cricket you'll see all types of horror stories.
ReplyDelete