Encounter In The Bathroom

Spiders can hear. At least I thought so when that white spider crawling down my bathroom mirror answered my quiet "Well, hello" by ducking behind the mirror. I wasn't close or loud, and, by the way, I wasn't speaking to make friends. I had murder on my mind. I pounded on the mirror, shoved a narrow comb behind, trying to scare him out. No luck. I came away from this morning encounter convinced that spiders can hear and their hearing is good.

I came away a bit worried, too. Was home for that spider behind my mirror? This is a big mirror. No lifting it from the wall.  Would the spider sneak out at night and do something nasty? Would I wake up with it spinning a web around my face? Given its size, I felt sure it could bite. Would I never find it? Would I one day discover a whole line of baby white spiders traipsing across my bathroom ceiling?

Well, the day was upon me. I could not hang out in my bathroom, stalking a spider who might be smarter than me.

That was Thursday morning. Saturday came, and I was changing the bedding on my bed. I pulled down a quilt from the top shelf of my little bathroom closet and there was the white spider, hanging on a string of web attached to the top of the door. It scurried upward and disappeared. I tried to reach up there with the toilet wand, make him come down again. No luck.

Now I was really worried. This guy (don't know the gender, of course) gets around, probably knows my bathroom better than I do. And he likes it here. Or she. I spoke to him again, louder this time and let him know he was not welcome in my bathroom. Or in my house, for that matter. What do I pay those Orkin people for, anyway?  I think he heard me, or I thought he did. But he made no reply and didn't show himself again for about a half hour. 

At that time he made a fatal mistake. Yippee!

He was sitting on the wall above my hamper. This time I said, "Oh, there you are," but not out loud. I didn't want him to hear me and run away. I quietly grabbed some toilet paper, moved close, and got him. The toilet received him, and he was gone.

So I am relieved. But because I knew I wanted to write some kind of report on this personal triumph, I did some research on spiders and their hearing capabilities.

There are no such capabilities. Spiders cannot hear. They don't have ears. They feel vibrations. So say the people who know these things. I suppose they have dissected spider after spider to discover that they have no ears, but how do they know spiders feel vibrations? Have the spiders said something about that? Not to me they haven't.

Not Bragging, Just Sayin'

Today I pulled the quilts off my bed, folded them, put them in storage.

Remade the bed--no easy job--putting on a blanket and different quilt.

Checked my email thrice.

Played, and won, of course, a game of Just Words.

Played, and lost, a game of Solitaire.

Scolded myself for wasting my time.

Stepped outside and kicked a lantern on.

Mixed up five little bottles of protein drink and took them to the outside fridge.

Cleaned two sinks, two toilets, parts of one bathtub, the parts I could reach without falling on my head.

Weighed myself. I know, I know. Shouldn't weigh myself every day. But, hey, the scale is right in front of the toilet, so why not?

Killed the spider who has been trying to make my bathroom his/her home--spiders can hear, you know.

Took a bath in the partially cleaned tub. It wasn't terribly dirty.

And now it is 7:58 AM.

It's Not Just About Electric Trains, But It Is About That

All my young life I wanted an electric train. Not that I thought about it every day, but I thought about it often. Certainly at Christmastime I hoped, and I know I spoke of it to my mother more than once. I never got one. Was I told that electric trains were not something girls could have? Don't know. Perhaps I just figured that out later, based on my experiences with "boys get everything; girls get to watch," trying to find a reason for never getting one. My older brothers never had electric trains either, but I don't know if a train was something they ever wanted.

It may have been a money issue. Our family was big, five children, and we weren't wealthy, although I never heard any talk about not having enough money. But perhaps money was too scarce to afford expensive toys like trains.

And there's the question of where you keep the train and where you set it up to run. I can only think of setting it up on the dining room table, but that would be terribly impractical. We ate at that table. And we played ping pong on that table. I'm still amazed that our mother let us do that.

Obviously, I'll never have the answer, no matter how much guessing I do. I don't remember if my own children ever asked for electric trains. I do remember hearing complaints about what so-and-so had. You know, "Why can't I have that?"

Why I think of this now, I'm not sure, except that last night was another sleepless night, and I do mean sleepless. That's what you do on such a night--think, worry, remember. All sorts of things pop into the brain.