This is why I hate house-sitting:
1. I was attacked by spiders.
I don't mean one or two, I mean those menacing little fuckers were everywhere. That's unusual. My parents have never had a spider problem, so I'm going to assume it's because I was there. I guess it could have been the flooding rain that happened the night before, but I doubt it. I think they just knew it was a good time to strike.
Almost immediately after arrival, I spotted one in the garage. A huge, furry black thing. Panic inducing, yes, but I didn't think a whole lot of it, as it is a garage and we did get all that rain. George offered to kill it. I tried to talk him into catching it and releasing it somewhere far away, but not at home, but he refused. (I guess this is a good time to mention, I can't kill things. It's because I'm batshit crazy and have watched too many kids' movies. I want the spiders to live, I just want them to do it somewhere I never have to see them.) He didn't kill it, either. While we were
Except not. Not even an hour after my parents left, there was another one, running across the kitchen floor. Ew. Mental note not to open the cupboard it ran into. Shit, it's the cereal cupboard! My parents don't keep a lot of food in the house, and cereal is one of the few items that's always on hand. Mental note to go buy new cereal.
Ten minutes after that, there was another one. This one stopped and looked at me with its horrible spider eyes. I grabbed the phone book. I couldn't get too close, but I was fairly certain I could toss the phone book onto it before it could escape. It kept looking at me. It pulled in all its gross little legs. I raised my arms. It looked at me some more. I prepared to throw. Ugh! The beady little eyes! I called Pie downstairs and had her put a glass over it.
Similar things kept happening. At one point, I was walking up the stairs to take a shower, and stopped just in time to avoid walking face first into one that was just hanging. Just hanging, taunting me. More beady little eyes, mocking and laughing. I could attack you if I felt like it. Fuck you, spider! I needed a breather after that.
I didn't sleep much. I'd drift off, only to feel all those awful little legs all over me. I tried to call George, but he just told me I was being paranoid and to go to bed. That wasn't very helpful.
2. I was forced to deal with adult responsibilities.
As if the spiders weren't enough, all the rain caused some sort house problem I was not prepared to deal with. Before they left, my dad realized there was something wrong with their sump pump. Uh huh. I don't even know what a sump pump is. My dad, while awesome, is outrageously cheap. It doesn't matter if he doesn't know how to fix it, he's going to try. (I can't really say anything, I seem to have inherited the same trait.) Only, it didn't work. And no one knew it didn't work until sometime after Pie's bath, when water backed up all over the laundry room. Well, shit. What do I do now?
I tried calling my dad, but they were in a remote cabin somewhere with no phone reception. I couldn't run the water at all or it started backing up again. There's no drain in the laundry room, so that just meant gross standing water all over the floor. Pie found that idea highly appealing.
"Look, Mumma! Puddles!"
I called a plumber. I figured my dad would be pissed, but my mom would be rational about it. Luckily, I'd taken the coffee can I've been saving my cruise money in to my parents' house last week. I meant to deposit the money in the bank, but time got away from me and it was still there, and I had enough to pay the plumber without having to leave. The plumber got the problem fixed, and my dad (begrudgingly) admitted that the plumber was necessary. I was really going to be pissed if I spent my cruise fund on my parents' plumber.
3. My parents' animals are distressing.
Then, there was the cat ordeal. My parents' cat is awesome. He started as my brother's cat, but wound up becoming my parents' when my brother's first apartment didn't allow pets. He can have pets now, but the cat is a seasoned killer and tries to take out my brother's girlfriend's dog every chance it gets. That's at least half of why he's awesome. My brother's girlfriend's dog is a real asshole.
Hoodrat (yeah, my brother named it Hoodrat) likes to hang out outside. And kill things. And bring them home. It's usually just mice, but once he dragged a goose back. That was impressive. Another time, he took out a raccoon. Oh, and the day of my brother's graduation party, half the guests had already arrived before we realized they were being greeted by a decapitated rabbit head. That's nice.
Finding his little gifts is no longer much of a surprise. Finding them alive is. I was completely unprepared to open the door only to have him chase a flash of brown past me. What the...? Then, the dog joined in. The dog, Jazzie, is super sweet, but dumb beyond reason. In her quest to find out what was going on, she knocked me down. I'm me, so that means I hit my head on something (a cupboard, in this instance) but I was able to determine the source of the commotion. Hoodrat found a baby rabbit and chased it into the house. Spectacular! I caught him, first. The rabbit had run into the laundry room (which was, thankfully, dry at this point) and the dog would more or less leave it alone if the cat wasn't egging her on. I put the cat in the spare room, and set about finding the rabbit.
My mom is a preschool teacher, and the laundry room doubles as storage for her walls upon walls of teaching materials. I had to pull all that shit out just to find the thing. In the midst of all of this, Pie is having a field day.
"Mumma, Mumma, Mumma! There's a tiny rabbit! A tiny little rabbit! Can I see it? Can I see it? Pleeease!!! Oh! Puppets! Books! Can I play with Gramma's things? Please? Please! Why? Whywhywhy? WHY? But I NEEEEED it!"
Pie really knows how to be the ray of sunshine when I'm already annoyed.
Once I found the rabbit, it was pretty uneventful. He didn't have any noticeable wounds, but was too terrified to move, so I sort of scooped him into a shoe box and put him in the woods out back. I hope he lives.
4. I had horrifically limited internet access.
I won't even get too far into the horrible computer situation, but something wasn't right.
My dad refuses to let anyone who isn't him use his computer. To be fair, I wouldn't either. His computer is a shining example of pure badassery. But he takes it super seriously, and it won't respond to my thumbprint. Yeah. He normally makes sure there's a spare set up for me, but he just sold the spare, and informed me (the night before they left) I was out of luck. What? I refuse to be out of luck, so I made George drag my big, bulky spare to their house. I'd need to find a network card, but my dad has enough spare parts that that wasn't a huge issue.
It took two attempts before I found one that worked, and things began to look up. Except later that night, something went awry with the internet. Most pages wouldn't load, and even if they did, there was a good chance I couldn't comment. On that note, I'd like to say a belated happy birthday to my lovely friend J-Pan. I didn't forget, my comment wouldn't stick. (Unfortunately, my dog ate the fondant Tom Selleck I made you. I plan to try again, but I feel terrible that it wasn't there for your birthday.) It wasn't just the computer, either. I couldn't connect to Netflix on the TV. I reset everything, but to no avail. Something was just determined to fuck with me. I was busy enough with Pie and all the freaking animals not to notice (much) during the day time, but at night, when I couldn't sleep and really needed entertainment, it was awful.
5. My parents' animals continued to be distressing.
Then, on the last day, the fish died. It was alive when I went to bed, and when I woke up, it was just dead. Seriously? It was just a goldfish, but it's death brought down a rain of tears from Pie. Plus, it wasn't a family pet, it was the fish from my mom's classroom. The only reason it was even there is because the center is closed this week (hence the mid-week getaway) and she was charged with keeping it alive. That's a fail.
The fish was old, and this was probably coming anyway, but did it have to happen on my watch? Now I feel responsible for the disappointment of a room full of three year olds when my mom goes back to work on Monday without a fish. Or, I guess she could replace it. You know what? I'm over it. I'm over all of this.
So basically, it's been a few shitty days, but I'm home and my husband is awesome and I plan to spend the entire day doing absolutely nothing.
I'm also feeling a bit more social lately, and I realize I've been awful at keeping up with people. I'll work on that. Plus, my dad has promised me a spare laptop while we wait for Samsung to send us a new DC adapter for mine. Wondering why I couldn't use that while I was there? Yeah, me too.
Oh, and again, to my fantastic friend J-Pan, hope your birthday was the happiest!
Ooh! I almost forgot! As I was falling asleep last night, my dad called. He wanted to know why there were glasses with spiders under them all over the house. It was the most satisfying part of the last three days.
