Friday, May 25, 2012

I'll Sleep When I'm Dead ... Which Could Be Any Moment Now


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 lie awake in a cold sweat pondering what torment tomorrow holds sleep on the other side.  And so it was last night.

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.

18 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am a slob, a terrible slob, I don't find it important to put things away, but I live with person who is the opposite and poor thing... I love to leave piles of clothes and papers until it makes him nuts, it is so boring to do chores and sleeping is a waste of time but... I have given in to exhaustion and inability to sleep so medication is bliss and now sleep so soundly and have energy to fight the daily battles, I think I will be alive until the end of this weekend but I am exhausted from too much caregiving, being Florence N and Norma Rae, I want to be really important, maybe I can make a bigger difference, but I am a slob

The Bug said...

When two people live in a one bedroom apartment (500 sq ft), you learn to not be a slob - at least with clothes, especially if you have to go to work before the caffeine kicks in every day. I was NOT going to root through a bunch of clothes at 6:30 in the morning trying to find something to work. So the clothes get put away. Paper, on the other hand, can do whatever it wants...

The Dead Acorn said...

It sounds like an endearing slobbery in your case. And sleep is pretty dang important to face the next day, so good for you.

If you're exhausted from too much caregiving, then I suspect you already are really important, and wanting to make an even bigger difference is icing on the cake. Nice.

My slobbery is mostly not putting away CDs, dog hair, and a kitchen full of dirty dishes. I seem to have the attitude that it's not time to do dishes until I'm out of spoons.

I have a LOT of spoons.

Anonymous said...

my slobbery is clothes, cat hair, and really as much slobbery as I can get away with living with someone who does not like clutter, I actually like clutter, or don't notice it, even when I trip over it,..... blogs...... this is new... for me, spiders are scary, although I held a big tarantala, I don't think I spelled that correctly? but in Costa Rica aomewhere , it was BIG and tame in a tank and I was brave and it walked up my arm , it was beautiful, I was not afraid of it but every other spider I ever saw I was afraid of except maybe daddy long legs. But back to the slob thing because I leave my clothes in a scrunched up mess, one weekend I took a course at the Sweedish Institute for Massage, like a continuing Ed thing and of course my jeans were on the floor, as slobs are known to do, and I was rushing and I got dressed and while sitting next to a stranger in this class, and the stranger was admiring my socks with pigs on them out from my jeans fell an extra scrunched up sock from the day before ( it had cows on it) at least the sock did not fall out in the subway but the person next to me was named Pee!!, not Pee PEE , weird, because for two days, every time I talked to her I thought of urine but she just found the sock thing funny, at least it was not underwear that fell out of my pants. I'm a slob! Oh well so this blogging, you just say stuff? Oh the Rangers, my guys will be sad,,, but I don't give a shit,sports are soooo boring. I like that name "the bug" I don't know if I should have a name, does that make me a blogger if I get a name. Whats in a name? hhhmmmm. I don't know, first it was facebook, I get very addicted, but then again it could be crack, blogs and FB is better than crack and so what if I'm a slob, I write too much, why would anyone read it?

The Dead Acorn said...

Anonymous - I've had the "sock falling out of the pants" thing happen ... pretty dang funny. And I don't think anyone writes too much (well, maybe Halberstam did). You can and should start a blog ... don't cost nothin', and you never know who might stumble upon it and read.

Bug - you're right ... I lived in a pretty small place with someone, and I was quite a bit tidier. My house is way too big for one person, but somehow I find stuff to fill the space (who the hell needs four bicycles?).

Anonymous said...

I am soooo mad, I wrote Like a novel and lost it

Anonymous said...

I'm not kidding, like my whole life story

Anonymous said...

I wish I could find it but it appears to be gone forever in the land of the internet, it felt so good to write... oh well

Anonymous said...

I feel like writing to strangers only, is that normal? Dumb question there is no normal, we all know that

The Dead Acorn said...

Anonymous, you keep writing whatever you want. Not sure what you mean by "normal." I'm glad you found this dumbass little blog.

The WxB said...

Dear Anonymous,

I want you to know that your rambling is more than welcome here. Welcome home.

Anonymous said...

Dead Acorn, why do you call yourself that? and are you really from Idaho???? Do people write real things on blogs?
WxB? why that name? this is so new to me, I guess I am behind the times and I become obsessed with things. Are there rules? You are both so nice to welcome me home, very, very nice, I will think of a name

Anonymous said...

Wxb, how come yor name is not in blue and I can not click on it and find you

The Dead Acorn said...

Anonymous ... I'm pretty sure that people write real things on blogs - I might tend to exaggerate a bit, but the spider was real, damnit! And yep, Idaho (it's the one in the west - Iowa and Ohio are the ones in the middle).

Anonymous said...

sorry Dead Acorn, I hope I did not insult you, I believe your stories are real, I believe all stories are real, I am just not trying to understand blogging

Anonymous said...

I don't think I know what to say, you have good stories to tell... my stories might be depressing or boring

Anonymous said...

When I lived alone, one night I found a HUGE spider in one of my pots in the kitchen. Needless to say, I danced around the kitchen, whining, for a couple of hours before mustering up the courage to carry the pot (and intruder) on to the porch, where I proceeded to dump water into the pot. That pot didn't come back into the house for months.

The Dead Acorn said...

hehehe Anonymous ... you don't actually COOK with that pot, do you? Because the spider aura stays there forEVAH. My visual inspection for spiders before getting into the shower in the morning has been used as a model for SWAT teams.