Hacking. Coughing. Hacking some more.
My poor, newly-five-year-old dude was just coughing his brains out. So I’m up, stumbling to the kitchen quickly, trying to fetch him a drink while simultaneously waking up to see the measuring cup through my blurry eyes. I’m also attempting to snag some cough medicine, Vick’s Vapo Rub, and, for the heck of it, some nose medicine (in case it’s nasal drip). I also grab my older son’s inhaler, just in case (I’ve caught what sounded like wheezing before). Somehow I am able to do all this, yet I barely have my eyes open, but enough to notice, it’s 4am.
Yikes.
I return to find my poor little dude is sitting there, half-asleep, coughing himself awake to fall asleep again. I can barely get the medicine in him, or get him to sit straight up to try (I felt like I was administering to a drunk person, the way he wobbled about!)
It’s at that point that I notice, amidst his wobbly-medicine-taking, that he does indeed have a semi-stuffy nose, and he should probably get up to blow it.
Now my half-asleep self is trying to get his drunken-like body to stand to go and blow his nose. (Take 2 guesses as to how much fun THAT was!)
We split up, him and I – he goes off, wobbling, to the bathroom to blow, and I head to the kitchen to return all the medicine and rinse out medicine cups.
“Mommy?!” I hear in a semi-urgent, much-more-awake voice a few moments later.
“Yes, baby?”
And then I hear the three most seriously cruel and UN-COOL words one can hear at four in the morning:
“There’s a spider.”
And I’m awake.
WHAT?!? Are you SERIOUS? No, you’re not serious. Tell me it’s one of those little ones I can stomp on and call it a day. Tell me it isn’t one of those that likes to torment me, make me suck my thumb and want my mother.
I peek around the corner, carefully, in case it’s already eaten my son and is hoping for a two-for-one deal. I am hoping against hope it isn’t one of the face-eating ones we seem to frequent around here, but when I see my son, alright, still alive, looking at me like I’ve grown another head, I suddenly snap to attention, play it cool and try not to look like I’m freaked out beyond imagination. “Whe-re!?!” I ask, my voice cracks slightly.
“There. Behind the picture,” he points.
I lean a little closer, about as far as my feet are willing to take me in fear, and of course, this big frame is leaning against the wall, casting a shadow that doesn’t allow me to see too well behind it. I lurch my head closer, and there does seem to be something there, something that might be one of the ones I feared it wasn’t. One just waiting to pounce and rip me to shreds. And then it moved. And it was confirmed.
Houston, we have a vicious, man-eating, face-melting spider.
DAMMITALLTOHELLANDBACK!
Cue my Tourrette’s-like behavior, spazzing, convulsing, my son eyeing me like I’m looney-tunes wondering what medicines I might’ve taken in the kitchen.
And then I get smarticle and realize, behind me sits the cornucopia of spider-killing apparatus’ we have, i.e., the myriad of instantaneous-death-inflicting spider sprays. I choose the bigger can, I’m not takin’ any chances.
Remember, it’s fricken 4-A-M, people.
And I get as close to the @#(*&@#$ thing as my body will get me, and lean… and spray. And miss. I continue to spray, chanting some murderous chant like “DIE*FRIGGIN*SPIDER*DIE” or something like that. AND THE DAMN THING RUNS OFF! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
Obviously outsmarted and in way over my head, it’s time for the big guns. Time to call in for back-up.
Ohhh hubby????
(Yeah, cuz ya know, that’s a fun wake up call at 4 in the morning. “Baby? Can you come downstairs and kill a spider for me??” I’m thankful he loves me such as he does)
Unfortunately, after much chasing and moving of things about the room with a broom, he, too, was unable to kill the mighty spider, and so, as of today, unless he did get a taste of my wicked Can-O’-Doom™, he is still somewhere, lurking in this house, waiting to pounce and inflict his revenge on me.
Probably waiting for the perfect time. My most vulnerable, like in the shower, or asleep..
{gulp}
I mentioned how they’re on to me, right?? And how much I need to get out of here?? Yeah. They know. They’re soooo on to me….
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