SPIDER LOVE

I was reading on the couch, enjoying a lazy, rainy Sunday when I saw my son Alex walk by with an empty glass covered with a napkin. “I thought you were taking a shower?” I called as I heard him open the back door.

“I was, but there was a spider in the tub.” he called back.

I got up to see. “How big is it?” I asked as I walked out on the back porch.

Alex pointed over to a side table. “Not that big.”

I walked over to see a small brown spider sitting on the table. When I got closer it began to scurry towards me. “Oh! Not a fan!” I said as I quickly backed up. I looked over at Alex. “But I have to say I'm very impressed!”

Alex looked confused as he walked back in the house and put the glass in the dishwasher. “Impressed with what?” he asked.

“That you'd catch a spider and walk it all the way outside instead of just flushing it down the toilet.” I was leaned back against the counter.

Alex shrugged his shoulders. “Aren't you always telling me about how you catch crickets at work and take them outside?”

It was my turn to shrug my shoulders. “I don't mind crickets.” I couldn't help but shutter. “But spiders are a different story.”

Alex went to throw the napkin in the trash. “Hey, everyone deserves a chance to survive.” He looked over at me and laughed. “Just not in my tub.”

“I hate to admit it, but if I'd found him in my shower I'm pretty sure I would have just flushed him.” I looked sadly over at Alex. “Does that make me a bad person?”

“I still love you.” Alex came over and patted me on the shoulder. “If it makes you feel any better I'll let you catch all the crickets that come into the house.”

I had to laugh. “It's getting to be that time of year.” I walked over to the cabinet and grabbed a water bottle, holding it out to Alex.

Alex shook his head. “I'm getting into the shower, remember?”

“Oh yeah.” I put the water bottle on the counter. “The problem with crickets is that they're so hard to find. It's like trying to figure out which smoke detector is chirping when the battery runs low. Remember last year when I spent three days trying to find the one in the living room?”

Alex smiled. “I remember it drove you crazy.”

“I swear I thought it was living in the couch!”

Alex walked by me headed for the shower. “Well, playing hide and seek with crickets this fall can be your punishment for not treating bugs we find in the house equally.”

Steven walked into the kitchen, catching the tail-end of our conversation. “Who's getting punished?”

“Mom, for killing spiders she finds in the house.” Alex laughed.

“You shouldn't kill spiders.” Steven said as he went over to the fruit dish and picked out an apple. “They actually help keep the other insect population down. Having one or two in the house can actually be a good thing.”

I pointed over to Alex. “Tell that to him because he just tossed one out the door!”

Alex laughed as he headed for the bathroom. “I don't care how good they are, I'm still not going to shower with one.”

STRESS WEIGHT

I was in the bathroom, getting ready to get in the shower when I hopped on the scale. Looking down at the number I burst out laughing.

My husband, Steven was in the bedroom getting dressed when he heard me and came to the door and knocked. “You okay in there?”

I put on my robe and opened the door. I was still laughing as I wiped a tear from my cheek. “You know how it's always so stressful the first week or so of school?”

Steven looked confused. “Yeah...”

“Well this year has been more so than usual.” I was leaned against the door jam while Steven went to the closet to get his shoes. “I've been running around and forgetting to eat.” I went over to sit on the edge of the bed. “So this morning I was going to weigh myself, thinking at least I'd have lost some weight and it would be the silver lining of a crazy week.” I watched as Steven sat on the bench at the end of our bed so he could put his shoes on.

“Okay, so how much did you lose?”

“That's the part that was making me laugh so hard.” I started to chuckle again. “I didn't lose any. In fact I gained a pound!” I started laughing again. “So now on top of everything else I must be sleep eating because I'm telling you I wasn't eating much all week!”

“Oh that happened to me once.” Steven bent over to tie his shoes.

“Having a busy week, forgetting to eat and gaining weight?”

Steven turned around to look at me. “No, sleep eating. Remember the time I went to the dentist and they gave me all of that Novocaine and I couldn't eat dinner. But I got up in the middle of the night and ate all kinds of things?”

“Oh yeah.” It was starting to come back to me. “I remember I came down the next morning and the hummus container was out on the counter and there was an apple with a knife in it laying on the table.”

“Then when I came into the kitchen and you asked me why I'd left the hummus out and I said it wasn't me?”

“Yeah.” I started to laugh again. “Then I pointed to your tee shirt that had hummus on it!”

“I couldn't deny it then, but it sure scared me because I swear, to this day, I don't remember doing it.” Steven just shook his head.

“Well at least we realized it was the Novocaine!” I looked over at him. “What's my excuse?”

Steven looked at me his eyebrows going up, looking as if he was about to get trapped. “I think you're beautiful no matter what you weigh.” he said quickly.

“Good answer.” I said as I leaned over and kissed the top of his head. I couldn't help but laugh as I headed back to the bathroom.
He got up from the bench and grabbed my arm to pull me into a hug. “Have an easy day.” He gave me a quick kiss. “I'll meet you back at house around dinnertime.” He headed towards the bedroom door before he stopped at turned around. “By the way, what's for dinner?”

“I'm making meatloaf.”

“Sounds good.” He smiled as he headed out.

I closed the bathroom door and looked down at the scale with disgust. “I hate you.” I whispered.

FLUFFY PILLOWS

I was pulling more white fluff from the inside of a pillow and stacking it on the dining room table when my son Alex came into the room. “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Haven't you noticed how dirty and flat my needlepoint pillows were getting?” I reached into the pillow and pulled out more.

Alex shook his head as he looked at the pile of fluff that was almost up to my shoulders on the table. “Nope, never noticed.”

“Well look at this.” I held up the now empty pillow with a needlepoint picture of a bee on it. “It's filthy!” I cried.

Alex leaned in to look closer. “I don't see any dirt.”

I turned it around to take a look for myself and couldn't see any either. “Okay, so maybe this one was just flat and needed new stuffing.” I reached over to another needlepoint pillow that had a white background. “This one's yucky!”

Alex shrugged his shoulders. “If you say so.” He picked up the pillow with the bee on it from the table. “It cracks me up that you have bees and honey jars all over the place just because Miele means honey in Italian.”

Now it was my turn to shrug my shoulders. “Hey, lucky for you it means that and not something disgusting!”

“You mean if it did we'd have a picture of something disgusting on a pillow?” Alex started to laugh.

“You never know.” I'd finished pulling the remainder of the stuffing from the last pillow and took them all over to the sink to start washing them.

Later that afternoon Alex was back in the kitchen and could see I was at the dining room table re-stuffing the pillows with new filling. “Wow! This has turned into an all day event.” He grabbed a snack and went into the living room and turned on the television.

“What can I say? I like clean, fluffy pillows.” I was jamming so much filling into each pillow they were looking bloated. “If I over-stuff them now I won't have to redo them for another year or two.” I explained.

“Whatever makes you happy.” Alex laid back on one of the couch pillows and began watching his show.

I'd finished stuffing the needlepoint pillows but still had some leftover stuffing. I was walking around the living room carrying the bag when I noticed the pillows on the couch. “Do they look flat to you?”

Alex looked over at me and adjusted the one under his head. “They seem fine to me.”

Not liking that answer I picked up one of the other pillows on the couch and unzipped the bottom. “Perfect! It's not a foam block, it's filled with stuffing too!” I reached into the bag and grabbed a big clump of stuffing and began jamming it into the pillow. When I was satisfied that it had enough filling I struggled to zip it up again then reached for the next pillow and did that one too. When that was in place I looked at Alex. “I need that pillow now.” I was pointing to the one under his head as I held a newly stuffed pillow for him to use.

Alex switched pillows but when he slipped the new one under his head it made his head tip forward. “I think you might have overstuffed this one.” he said with his chin almost touching his chest.

“Don't worry, it will flatten out after a while.” I was busy cramming more stuffing into the pillow when my husband Steven came into the room. He looked at Alex, “You don't look very comfortable.”

“I'm not.” Alex tried to adjust the pillow so his head would rest the right way.

I tossed the last finished pillow on the couch. “Don't they look fabulous!” I cried. “Nothing looks better then freshly fluffed pillows!” I looked at Alex and Steven.

“Wow!” Steven looked around at all the overstuffed pillows on all the furniture. “Who knew we'd been living with flat pillows all this time.”

“Not me.” Alex sighed as he was still trying to find a comfortable place to rest his head. “I think I liked them better flat.”

SKUNKED

It was close to dawn and the overwhelming stench of skunk woke me up from a sound sleep.

“Oh my God!” I cried, gulping for some air that wasn't putrid smelling.

My husband, Steven was already up and looking out the window. “I don't see him, but the smell is pretty bad.” He closed the window and turned the ceiling fan on. “I'm going to turn the air conditioning off before the smell gets stuck in the filters.”

I grabbed by bathrobe and followed him. “I'm trying not to breath through my nose, but when I breath through my mouth I swear I can almost taste it.” I couldn't help but gag as I held the sleeve of my bathrobe up against my face. “Oh, my God! Smell this!” I held my sleeve up to Steven. “It's on my robe too!”

Steven didn't take me up on my offer to smell my sleeve. Instead he was opening the windows and turning the ceiling fans on. “Can you turn the exhaust fan on over the stove?”

“Sure.” I headed toward the kitchen as our son Alex was coming out of his room. “You're up early.”

“Are you kidding me?” he had his sweatshirt sleeve over his nose. “Who can sleep with that smell!”

Alex followed me into the kitchen. “That's why we're opening windows and turning on the fans.” I explained as I flipped the switch on the exhaust hood then went to open the kitchen door. I'd just stepped out on the deck when I froze, stopping Alex from following me out. “Oh, my God!” I whispered. “It's worse out here!” I quietly backed into the house and closed the door.

“Do you think he's under our deck?” Alex asked.

“I sure hope not.” I went into the hall closet and pulled out the spray bottle of Febreze and started spraying my bathrobe. After a moment I smelled my sleeve again. “Great, now I smell like a skunk that's walked through...” I looked at the Febreze can. “meadows and rain!” I put the can back in the closet as Steven came out of our bedroom.

“The smell's a lot stronger out back.” I told him.

“Do you think it's living under our deck?” Alex asked him.

“I doubt it.” He was headed to the back door. “Our bedroom smells better already so I think he was walking through our yard when something spooked him.”

“Don't open the door!” I cried. “He might be walking under our deck! The last thing we need is for him to get scared again!” I couldn't help shaking my head. “I can't imagine what a direct hit would smell like if this is his I'm-walking-through-the-yard stink!”

Steven closed the door. “Okay. So we'll stay inside until we're sure he's moved on.”

The three of us just stood in the kitchen staring at each other.

“Well, there's no going back to bed now.” I sighed as I grabbed the teapot and went to the sink to fill it with water.

“I guess not.” Alex sighed.

Steven went to the refrigerator. “Anyone want some breakfast?” he pulled the carton of eggs out.

Alex and I just looked at him.

Steven looked confused. “What?” he put the eggs on the counter and went to get the frying pan.

I sighed. “How can you want to eat when the stench is still so strong?”

Steven shrugged his shoulders. “I guess I'm getting used to the smell.” he put the frying pan on top of the stove. “And I'm hungry.”

Alex sat down to the kitchen table still holding the sleeve of his sweatshirt against his nose. “You know, he's right. Just because it stinks doesn't mean we can't eat.”

Steven smiled as he began cracking eggs into the pan.

“You two enjoy your breakfast.” I smelled my bathrobe sleeve again. “But I'm going to throw this in the washer before I go take a shower and see if that helps.”