I may have mentioned before that I’m not the soundest of sleepers, for what I assume are a myriad of reasons; reasons which I have no real interest in exploring, preferring instead to toss and turn and plow forward through the mornings fueled by pot after pot of the cheapest coffee that the Piggly Wiggly sells. The cause of last night’s sleeplessness, however, was quite clear, and I fear that I may never slumber again.
Being the lone resident (human resident, I should say) of Casa de Acorn, I, on occasion, and to no one’s surprise, I’m quite sure, fall just a tad behind on what the more priggish among us might call “a schedule of household chores that meets the minimum EPA standards for avoiding designation as a Superfund site.”
Yeah, I can be something of a slob.
The thing that led to last night’s incident, though, isn’t a complete breach of lifestyle protocol logic, I would argue: Why should I take the simple process of “clothes get dry ==> clothes get worn” and inject an intermediate “clothes get taken from the dryer, folded, and put into a dresser” step? It’s an obviously wasteful endeavor, and while some would label me as “lazy,” I prefer to think of myself as an “energy conserver.” Why do you hate the planet, dresser users?
Every once in a while, though, I conform to societal "norms," and gather up the clothes that are half in the dryer, half in the basket, half on the floor, and take them back and dump them on my bed, where they stay for another few days, as there is plenty of room in my big bed for me to
Here’s a conversation I had with someone about what happened next (I was speaking from atop a chair in the kitchen):
Dead Acorn: “So I’m gonna fold clothes, and I dump the clothes out on the bed, and I’m reaching for a t-shirt, and this GIANT-ASS SPIDER COMES RUNNING OUT STRAIGHT AT ME! He must have crawled up on a piece of clothing that was touching the floor! He was HUUUUGE!”
Person To Whom I Was Relating The Story: “Whatever.”
DA: “He was brown! And RECKLESS!”
PTWIWRTS: “Oh, for shit's sake. The word is ‘reCLUSE,’ and 1) it most likely wasn’t a brown recluse, as they’re not all that common, B) they’re called “recluses” because they are not aggressive, and Γ) even if it were a brown recluse, and it bit you, it’s extremely unlikely anything remotely serious would even happen. God, you can be a sissy.”
DA: “Nuh uh! They’re called brown reckless spiders because they have no regard for their own lives, instead attacking without hesitation or forethought anything they can get their monster fangs into. The little bastards are the only creature a honey badger won’t mess with.”
PTWIWRTS: “Just fold your stupid clothes and go to sleep.”
Well, as they say, fuck that. I finally mustered the courage to gather the clothes back into the basket (using a broom handle), push the basket to the laundry room, and get them back into the washing machine. I used the same process with the sheets, and indeed all of the clothes in my bedroom, clean or not, as the brown reckless ejects its eggs aerially as it walks, onto any surrounding fabric within 20 feet, so that an infestation can occur in a matter of hours. I had to drown them all.
Well, I wasn’t taking any chances, knowing that there could have been a survivor or two, so I’m sure you understand why I’m a little tired today. It’s hard to sleep standing on a kitchen chair, after all.
