Catching Pests

A giant, fuzzy wolf spider made a heroic attempt to enter our house.

When I squashed it with my husband’s nearby Croc, I realized she had a good reason to try to find a safe and dry place.  Or rather, about 800 reasons.

The squash sent hundreds of baby wolf spiders running in every direction, including into my nightmares for the next week.

I learned that wolfies, as I will affectionately refer to them, carry their eggs and then their young until they are big enough to fend for themselves.

It makes me shiver to remember the mass exodus of spiderlings spreading out over the pavement, like an end of days flood, reaching everywhere at once.

My mom was visiting at the time and casually asked the next morning, “What was all the fuss about last night?”

If only you knew, I thought. I wanted to protect her from the mental image of the swarm.   

“Just a little spider situation.”

Naturally, Daddy Longlegs put out about fifty sticky glue traps to catch any of the runners that made it over the threshold before I screamed and slammed the door.

And just as naturally, we caught some things over the following days.

I just never imagined the pests would be so big, as in 40lbs and three feet tall.

I heard Daddy Legs say, “Why would you put your fingers in there? Now you are both stuck.”

And I knew, we caught the boys.

“What happened?” I asked even though it was obvious with each boy attached to his own sticky glue trap.

“Well, Baby Brother put his fingers into a trap and then Little Legs put his fingers into a trap and now they are both stuck.”  

Clearly, the traps work just as well at catching pests as curious, little boys who are up past their bedtime.

Lesson Learned

Two women sat outside on grey concrete steps; they both wore shorts and colorful tank tops.

“Has anyone seen Thumper?” the woman on the left asked.

She was tall and birdlike, scanning the grass like a heron searching for a fish.

“Wait, who is Thumper?” the woman on the right replied.

She flipped her long red hair over her shoulder. A blurry blue tattoo written in cursive appeared where her hair had been draped.

“It’s that baby bunny I found over the weekend. I held him right here on my chest for almost an hour,” Birdy said.

“You know you can’t have pets,” the supervisor said from behind the women.

The supervisor had just opened the door and found the women sitting on the steps, she would have preferred not to have heard about Thumper. She always tried to make noise when entering a room to stop any conversations about things she couldn’t unhear.

“Whoa, where’d you come from? You’re sneaky like a ghost,” Birdy said.

The supervisor understood the need to take care of something. Baby bunnies were soft and gentle, unlike the lives from which the women recently left. It felt good to hold a living, quivering thing. There was a worthiness and honor in holding the life of another in one’s hands.  

“We were just looking for Birdy’s bunny that she found over the weekend,” Red said.

“Shut up, Red,” Birdy hissed.

They knew what happened a few months earlier when another resident hid a kitten in her room and the entire house became infested with small, hopping, biting pests. To every action, there is a reaction or a consequence. The small brown ball of fur known as Reese Puff and the woman were both asked to leave. Fleas and all.

Clearly, it was a lesson well-learned because Thumper never made it inside.

Heavy Heart

Rain sends the birds away, up into the safety of the trees, I suppose.

I watch from my window as drops fall into the puddle and ripples spread out with each drip-drop.

My client is late and after recent events, this is a sign of trouble.

One of many that I missed before today.   

I accept the limitations of my human nature; I cannot read minds or predict the future.

I can also only bend so much before breaking.

Working with people is proving to be hard. Harder than steel or diamonds.

So hard, it feels like we are off the Mohs hardness scale.

I am considering my options and interests; I could trim trees or study earthworms or stack books.

Maybe do all three on different days?

I won’t run away from this sadness that feels like a storm in the night with impossibly high waves, and I won’t let it sink me. I am the captain of my ship, not a rat hiding in the storage room.  

I am in (almost) complete control (of nothing).

The world is my oyster and right now it’s a little stinky.

Free as the Birds

Two birds land in a puddle outside of my window with a splash. They hop and flap and lean forward to take sips of the brown water. I imagine them tweeting, woo-hoo, to each other.  

I feel a sudden irritation. C’mon, really? The puddle cannot be that much fun; I grouch mean thoughts towards the birds. I wonder with a selfish jealousy at their freedom when I am stuck inside? 

My inner baby wails against doing more case notes from within the four crumbling walls of my office. I want to be outside in the sun, dilly-dallying with nothing to do, nowhere to be and no one to see.  

I check myself. Obviously, this is irrational. I am causing my own suffering by resisting reality and not appreciating what is in front of me. I was safe and dry when those same carefree birds were getting drenched in the storm that left the puddle. I am gainfully employed with a sense of purpose and meaning, the price of responsibility that the birds are unable to pay. 

Freedom, like so many other things, is based on our perspective. 

The moment we let go of wanting something else and accept reality is freedom. 

When I find myself stuck in the loop of wanting, wishing, regretting and resisting, I ask myself two questions that help to shift my thinking from resistance to acceptance. 

The first question is, what if this is it? 

As in, end game, this is the last time I ever get to sit in the office and watch birds play in a puddle. The entire situation is suddenly not so bad, in fact, it is a precious gift. 

The second question is, what if this is as good as it gets? I may want to be somewhere else, like not at work, but there is no guarantee that it will be any better than where I am right now. 

There are no definite answers to either question but the process of thinking them through helps me through challenging times on a daily basis. 

What gets you through the day?

Small World

A grey-haired woman sits in the cool shade of a row of trees. It is only by the grace of her Higher Power that the rickety metal chain in which she is situated doesn’t collapse into the tall grass around her feet. She stares into the glowing screen in her hands, her entire world is just a few inches wide. If she were to look up, which she doesn’t, she would see the setting sun in the distance and a deer munching the flowers in her yard.

It is an illusion to think she has the world at her fingertips, that her possibilities are unlimited. She is as secure in her access to this Xanadu as the strength of her internet signal allows. She is a prisoner of technology, an arrangement into which she blindly entered, still blissfully unaware that it is a deal with the Devil.   

She is not alone, I think as I drive past.  The urge to check my email and stats and friend updates tickles and then gnaws at my brain until I check into my own small world. Triggers lead to urges. I am already reaching for my phone, for a quick review of things. It gives me insight into the torture of addiction, and an arrogance that I can quit anytime I want.

I still don’t quit the scrolling and clicking. I don’t really want to give it up, an admission that must please the Artificial Intelligence watchdogs that are compiling a list of tech resisters.

Not me, Future Robot Rulers who are predicted to take over if we can’t get a handle on our consumption of tech and unregulated and increasing uses of AI.

I am in.

Another willing slave of the billion or so Earthlings to control.

Wink-wink.