I came home from dinner last night with friends. It was kinda late, and it was drizzling, and I was cold. So I just wanted to go to bed. When I go out, I usually leave the desk lamp in my bedroom on so that I don’t have to return to complete darkness in my house. So with the desk lamp being the only light on in the house, I walked into my bedroom, and (cue horror music) THE SPIDER WAS REINCARNATED!
OK, so not quite. This was a smaller version. Like not even half the size. Maybe it was a husband and wife team. But seriously, TWO huge hairy spiders in 2 days? After 3 years of NEVER having even ONE in my house? What IS this?
As you can see, I might be being a little melodramatic. This specimen was not even (but almost) the size of my palm. But it was RIGHT NEXT TO MY BED. And I have seen/heard horror stories of spider bites in the night. Kids come to school with eyes swollen shut. Teachers get nasty, pussy welts that last for days. I was NOT having it. So instead of calling for hotjaga, I took matters into my own hands. I threw on a pair of flipflops (btw, it felt WEIRD wearing flipflops as a I walked through my house. I’ve spent too long in a culture that takes their shoes off at the door), apologized profusely to the spider, and stomped.
Here’s the kicker – the instant before my foot came down on it, it curled its body into a ball, and....
.... IT SCREAMED.
That’s right, people. Scary spider actually SCREAMED. It was awful. And guts went everywhere. I’ll spare you the details. I smsed hotjaga, who was at the back gate, to tell him there was another one and that I killed it myself this time. But I spelled spider wrong (in Indonesian) and ended up telling him that I killed a giant pumpkin by my bed. So he called to ask what I meant and make sure I was OK.
I was feeling pretty horrified by that whole situation and grossed out by the cleaning it up. I went to the bathroom and washed my hands. And then I remembered I hadn’t brought my cilantro in yet. Yeah, the cilantro was getting too big for the window greenhouse thing, so I put it in it’s very own big boy planter and it goes outside in the daytime. It gets chilly at night though, so I bring it in the house. It looks like this:
So last night, I opened my back door which, oddly, is located in my bedroom, and I reached down to grab the plant. And I was met with this....
Again, not huge. About 40 cm (16 in). But extremely close to my bed. And these things have ways of getting inside my house. They’ve done it before. I couldn’t tell if it was venomous or not, and I wasn’t taking chances. I went back in my room and grabbed my camera and phone off the desk. The camera was obviously to take this picture. The phone was to sms hotjaga, “Come. Fast. There is a snake. Behind my house.” He thought I was joking, due to the whole spider debacle. I couldn’t convince him that I wasn’t. Again, I had to take matters in my own hands. I keep a pair of green rubber boots outside my back door – you can see them in the cilantro photo. I ever so slowly reached over and slid them on my feet, the snake just staring at me the whole time, only a few feet away. That was a really good plan, given that the snake coiled and bit my foot 3 times before I actually got it stomped to death.
Hotjaga finally believed me when I brought the dead snake to him. I think he felt guilty for not believing me in the first place, so (since his shift had just ended anyways), he went behind my house to check and make sure there were no more creepy crawlies back there.
The whole ordeal left me pretty disturbed. My heart was racing and my whole body was shaking. I think it was just the adrenaline of it, because I wasn’t that scared. Stomping other things to death disgusts me though. If I can catch things and release them someplace far away from me, I’ll usually go that route. But drastic times call for drastic measures.
I didn’t sleep much last night. I finally made it IN bed at 11:30 and it took awhile for all my nerves to calm down enough to sleep. By 4 am, I was sneezing violently and repeatedly (allergies). And I got to school and realized this is the day that 3 visitors from ACSI (Association of Christian Schools International), our accrediting organization, arrive to observe and evaluate our school. Fantastic. Fingers crossed that I don’t get observed or interviewed today.
Oh, and I told Aswan we’re getting married this weekend because I can’t handle all this nature on my own for much longer.
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