Of Mice and Men and Disgusting Places

Okay, I admit. I'm terrified of spiders. Not just in a "Eww, that's gross" way but in a "AAAHHH!" way. Usually, when I see a spider, I scream like a woman and make Lydia smash it for me.

Of course, that's tamed down a lot since I moved to Oregon. There's approximately 1.38 trillion-kabillion spiders just on the YWAM campus alone. Literally, one time last summer I was sitting on some up-turned buckets with a couple of other guys for no more than 10 minutes, and as we watched a little arachnid proceeded to make a web between one of the other guy's shins. So, I can't really scream every time I see one anymore. Instead I have to stifle it inside, get all fidgety and hope that I can pass without it noticing me.

There was one time, in Hawaii, that Lydia and I were actually attacked by the most aggressive, meanest, nastiest spider on earth. Thank God I haven't seen any like that around here. Still, it sucks going to storage and having to arm myself with my ice scraper because every box that I move releases 3 or 4 of the little creepies. The worst is that my aim is terrible, partially because I'm afraid I'll just anger them by trying to whack them, and partially because spiders have this weird ability to move somewhere completely unexpected at the last second. If you try and compensate for this, you never know where they're going to go, but it you don't they just move out of the way. Or something.

So do you have the image of me, ineffectually spasm-flailing at several spiders with an ice-scraper? Then you'll understand why I was so annoyed at a mouse today.

Mice don't bother me. I don't need to jump on my chair or anything like that. They're usually cute and fuzzy and have little whiskers and a nose that crinkles when they sniff the air. Sure, I don't want one crawling on me without my permission, but they usually don't like to do that (unlike spiders, who will crawl anywhere with total disregard to decorum). But what I do mind is when a mouse takes up residences inside the dryer vent in our house. Not actually inside the house, technically. Just in the dryer vent.

Even that I wouldn't mind - I probably wouldn't even notice - except that this mouse decided to store all the loud, rattling seeds he could find in there. So now, whenever we turn on the dryer, there was a few minutes of insane rattling as the seeds all got blown somewhere further down the line. Also, whenever the mouse comes home lately it makes an awful racket, enough to wake Lydia up at night. (Nothing wakes me up, except spiders.)

So today I have to fix it. And guess where I have to go? That's right, under the house. Where approximately 87% of the spiders live to begin with.

First, I sat at the crawl-space opening for about 10 minutes, trying vainly to see something with my flashlight that doesn't look like a web filled with hobo spiders. I do not want to crawl under there. But wait, what's that? I can see the vent hose. It's lying on the ground. It looks like it's fallen off the connector that holds it on the wall, thereby allowing vermin to enter at their leisure. But it hasn't fallen that far off. Maybe, if I just go around to the other side, unscrew this thing from the wall, I can just reach in there and grab it - no, wait, let me get a stick and remove all the cobwebs - there! Yes!

Amazingly, I completed the whole operation without actually going under the house (except for about 18 inches of my arm). Also, there was a brand new vent kit under the house as well. That's weird, it's almost like someone living here before had the same problem. I guess they chickened out, too.

So, the moral of the story is that you need to kill mice before they make you crawl somewhere with spiders.

Anyway, I found another picture of an actor with hair like mine: