Hippies Bug Me

I live in a hippie house. We have not one, but two compost piles, my housemate runs his truck on vegetable oil, and if there's any product that comes in an environmentally-friendly form, we own it. Eco soap is the worst: it doesn't even clean the dishes. It has this hippie mentality in which it thinks all dirt has the right to coexist on the plates and lets it stay where it is if it wants to. Personally, I admire my housemates commitment to preserving the environment, especially having lived in places that don't even champion recycling. However, I draw the line at the bugs. The live and let live attitude is not restricted to grime, but to the insects that take up residence in our house. Until they start chipping in their portion of the rent, I'm not willing to share their laissez faire approach to the flies, moths, and roaches. I'm the evil guy who kills the bugs on sight, as opposed to their method of catching and releasing (and invariably waltzing back into our house again.)

In some ways, the bug invasion is good. I've gotten over my mild fear of spiders. Now when I see one in my room, I ignore it rather than panicking, understanding it to be yet another house guest. A couple days ago, I went into the side shed to fetch a box of mine at night, and walked through a gigantic spider web encompassing the doorway. Previously, I would have freaked out, but I thought nothing of it, grabbing my belongings and acting as though nothing happened.

Today, I heard Jessica screaming outside. I ran out to find out what was happening. (Actually, if we're being completely honest, I was pooping when I heard her scream, so it was a couple minutes before I was able to see what was the matter.) Jessica had also gone to the shed, and discovered a huge black widow spider hanging on its web in the doorway. Though the spider retreated to a corner out of sight, Jessica's hippie attitude had disappeared, and she was insistent on killing the thing immediately. Apparently, they really are quite deadly. It made me feel great to know I unwittingly pushed through a black widow web unaware of how close to danger I was.

For half an hour, we waited there in our underwear with sticks prepared to beat the spider should it reappear. It never did, but we discover several pouches with hundreds of spider eggs in them. Jessica jumped into action and smashed the eggs into useless heaps, much like you would expect from an abortion-loving head of the Women's Center.

Kevin: Don't spiders die after they lay their eggs?
Jessica: I don't think so.
Kevin: Well, that's how happened in Charlotte's Web.
Jessica: Yeah, but that's just a cartoon movie.
Kevin: Actually, it was a book first... idiot.

Admittedly, that's not the way to treat someone who protected me from an invasion of hundreds of black widow spiders. Jessica is not an idiot, she is a warrior who knows when to turn off her hippie powers. I applaud that. In the meantime, I'm not too cool with spiders again - Charlotte being no exception.