It’s been a year since I stopped getting the mail. A year since I have been petrified, gained more gray hairs and unable to do the simple act of opening a box to retrieve my mail.
I am engaging in battle again. There are spiders in my mailbox. Three of them. The hate is once again pulsing in my veins.
I am not a hateful person in general. I don’t mind mice or snakes or even rats. But spiders and I have a long history of hate. No love. Never love. Simply hate.
And for good reason.
Take for example the fact that spiders are lazy. You heard me. They are lazy.
Oh I get it. You’re thinking that they build these beautiful webs. Just look at how the dew clings to the web in an intricate pattern in the early morning light. Sure. Maybe I can get on board with that. It makes a pretty picture, but consider this. Spiders build a web, and then they sit in the middle. Waiting for their food. Not stalking their prey, just hoping the good Lord blesses them with a fly.
Like I said. Lazy.
Worse, those webs are nearly invisible, and they are sticky even to humans. Have you ever tried to shake a web from your hand? As Daffy Duck said, “Despicable!”
Imagine walking up the stairs, ducking your head just in case their “creation” is in your path, miscalculating the web’s distance and running headfirst into it. The spider drops in front of your face, screaming at you about ruining your home. You run upstairs into the hayloft shrieking like a beauty pageant contest who ate an entire donut and then realizes the swimsuit competition is the next event.
Your dog races up the stairs, circling the hayloft of the barn, looking for the predator that nearly killed his owner.
It has happened.
Some spiders just run around, chasing people, curling up on their hydraulic legs, spinning around while their intended target screams bloody murder.
Some spiders even chase their intended victim because they got tired of the victim flushing her children down the toilet. If this should happen to you, jumping on top of the bathtub rim does work, and buys you time until your father comes in and takes care of the problem.
It has happened.
Some spiders take an existing, functional mailbox and turn it into their personal home. It’s like they are squatters in a house they aren’t paying rent for. Kick them out, and they move right back in. They turn your mail into their own personal hiding spot and then jump at you when you’re getting something that’s rightfully yours—the mail.
There could be that Publisher’s Clearing House check I’ve been waiting for. I’ve bought enough magazines that surely I’m going to win this year.
Alas, I’ll never know. I have stopped getting the mail.
It’s happening again.
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