Dance Party US

Today's word:  lazy.  Definition: me.

I didn't actually look this one up, since ... well, I'm lazy.  Not all the time, but in select moments, shockingly so.  For instance, about two minutes ago I was lying here on the couch, and something caught the corner of my eye, and I looked up to see a gigantic spider scurrying down the wall, just as fast as its eight enormous legs could carry it.

And I did nothing.  Granted, I am lying on a heating pad, having done something inexplicable and annoyingly painful to my hip, and killing this thing would have required cat-like reflexes that I simply do not possess at the moment. But it unnerves me a bit that not even the threat of that same brazen arachnid scurrying over my bare feet within the hour could induce me to get up.

Because that's what they will do, surely.  It is our greatest fear.  Those creepy creatures that inhabit our homes always -- yet are only sporadically driven into the light, much to their embarrassment and our horror -- harbor a secret desire to do only one thing:  crawl on us.  Their secret agenda is to dance across our skin, preferably in the middle of the night, when we cannot feel their multiple feet tap-tap-tapping away, like a little Fred Astaire with a thorax.

Otherwise, why would we be so scared of them?

There's nothing worse than attempting to kill a bug and failing.  This means that, not only is it still lurking somewhere in your bedroom, but it saw your face as you tried to squish it.  And now it's pissed.  This is why I'm a fan of sprays rather than shoes as weapons of death.  You can't really "miss" with a spray. Plus, you don't have to hear anything crunch.  As an added bonus, nothing escapes the tissue and scurries across your hand as you screech like a schoolgirl.

Which I have done, despite psyching myself up and trash-talking whatever's hanging on my wall. I don't know why I turn these encounters into a battle royale, as if I'm playing out a confrontation foretold in an ancient legend.  I half expect whatever it is to turn to me with a steely glare and growl, "It's a good day to die."

Sometimes, with spiders, I live and let live, depending on their proximity to my pillow.  There are moments when I hope they will cry out "Salutations!" and spin a delightful web with the words "Some Pig" in it.  I should stop doing this, assigning insects human traits. It would make flushing their bodies so much easier.

Centipedes are another story.  I am literally distraught if I miss one of those bastards.  Cockroaches?  That's a whole other blog and likely a lifetime of psychological counseling.

For now, I'm going to pretend that I never saw that spider.  I'm going to let it go.  And against all my better instincts, I'm going to assume that I will not wake up at 3 a.m. with tiny dance cards strewn about my sheets.

Yeah.