The End of the Spawn

Well, the eight-legged Spawn of Satan is now an ex-Spawn. I'm arguing extreme provocation due to lack of sleep, severe arachnophobia, and the discovery of the bugger on yet another suit jacket at 7 in the morning. The last one appears to be unsalvageable.

I'm not sure if arachnicide is a word, but it'll do.

Last night was me, myself and I, all trying to get to sleep and failing miserably. I haven't had a bout of insomnia for a while, and I'm not a happy camper without enough sleep.

I got dressed. Got a few visitors to the office today, so I went to grab the suit jacket - the cheaper one, that hadn't, until this morning, been desecrated by spider silk.

The positive here is that I didn't grope the Evil One by accident this time. I moved the hanger back, and there it squatted, wrapped in white fuzz. It looked like the face-hugger from Alien, wearing a negligee. All it needed was fuzzy slippers and a hair net.

And then it - it lunged at me. The Spawn of Satan lunged at me. It had hi-jacked my wardrobe - again, mind you - and now it was acting like something out of a bad creature feature.

In hindsight, this turned out to be a fatal mistake on the part of the Spawn.

I stayed spider-free because I moved backwards pretty damn quickly, and also because it was so tightly wedged into the bundle of silk it couldn't move more than a couple of centimetres. The part that did move appeared to be mostly composed of fang.

I stood in my room, watching my biggest phobia struggle to wriggle free of it's cocoon, still aiming those fangs at me, and then it got the first pair of legs out.  At which point, dear readers, this little author lost her shit.

I don't often lose my temper. When I do, the results are, em. Interesting.

This morning was interesting to the point of me bouncing repeatedly on Spawn with a pair of heavy boots, shouting at the top of my lungs.

Considering said shouting consisted of a whole lot of "Die! Die! My SUIT!" (and other words that will not be used on this blog, because there are limits to what is fit for public consumption, and also, my mother would kick my ass), I'm mildly surprised the neighbours didn't call the cops. Explaining that one to the Flying Squad would have been awkward. I left the house feeling slightly insane.

I spent the rest of the morning with shaking hands, and I've been skittish - every time something moves too fast around me, I jump. You don't want to know what happened to the first cup of coffee I tried to drink.

So the Reign of the Spawn has ended, with the final chapter involving the Dyson and the ceremonial Ew, Don't Touch the Carpet with Your Bare Feet Dance.

At some point over the next week, I'll probably feel guilty. But right now, I'm just glad that damned thing's negligee weighed it down.

Moments of Aarrgh!!

This might have been one of the most frustrating weekends ever. I made the horrible, horrible mistake of updating my iphone (mainly because the Apple reminder kept shrieking at me, and it was driving me buggy. It's like an attention-seeking 3 year old, bouncing at me every time I looked at my screen). It's a pretty old iphone - 3GS - but it works. I use it for twitter, to check mail, to torture little green pigs - what more could a girl want? It hiccuped at me every now and then, but considering the life expectancy of most tech around me, it's lasted pretty well.

All of my music promptly quit playing. When I checked the iTunes store, it told me that the only thing I had was Pumped Up Kicks.
Now, I love that song, and I had indeed bought it. What I hadn't done was buy 15 versions of it, which my itunes store insisted I had. I found a lot of my music in the trash bin (Apple, WTF?) and moved it back. It vanished again. Then I realised I had it backed up on a removable drive, so that was sorted.
Still no joy getting the music to play - if I moved into my playlists the songs just scrolled by on the screen, like demented puppies on acid.

I deleted the playlists, but couldn't actually delete the songs - puppies on acid again, with extra helpings of "Bite me, Technophobe."
So I decided to bit the bullet and do a restore. I figured I had the weekend to return the apps & get the music sorted out.

Ahem.

iTunes decided I didn't have a sim card in my phone. The one that had been functioning perfectly well until then. I took the sim out. I put the sim back. Rinse, repeat, ad infinitum.

The phone itself won't move past the activation screen, because it says the server is down. iTunes still reckons the sim card is a figment of my imagination. My imagination is pretty Apparently the iphone now has no capacity, no software version, and no serial number. Um. WHAT????

The only solution I've found on-line is to abuse the emergency services number, and I have no real urge to phone my mother from jail next weekend.

Author say naughty word.

Author check warranty. Warranty pretty much keeping company with the pterodactyl.

Author say naughty words in several languages.

If anyone wants to buy a funky buzzing paperweight, let me know. It doubles as a mood-destroyer, supplies ambient lighting when you least expect it to, and is large enough to club yourself repeatedly on the head. The intermittent vibrating noise (must be plugged in) might be good for teasing your cat.


                                        ***************************

In other news, although the 8-legged spawn of Satan that destroyed my suit jacket has not (yet) re-appeared, I had two close encounters with mini-spawn.

One committed suicide by bouncing in front of my nose and onto my kindle (I tried to get it off gently and it broke. the spider, not the kindle. Cue guilty moment.) and the other one scrambled over my face. Bitch-slapping yourself as a reflex is not recommended, by the way. I evidently slap quite hard, judging from the lovely red welt I left on my own cheek-bone. I either missed that mini-spawn altogether, or I pulverised it so finely it left no trace. I'm hoping for the miss, mainly because I don't think spider-guts are considered effective beauty treatment in any culture.

Both of these, by the way, while howling at iTunes until the early hours of the morning. Neither one has helped my temperament, or my writing this weekend.

Sadly, folks, until I either get this sorted, or win the lottery and can buy a new phone, I'm going to be scarce on twitter during the day. I promise to try and catch up in the evenings and on weekends though.

In the meanwhile, tips, hints and sympathy will be gratefully acknowledged and appreciated.

Little Miss Muffett has Issues

Today involved a fairly important meeting at week. I have a suit jacket I wear for the important ones, and I thought today pretty much fit the bill.

So. I reach my fingers into the wardrobe, and for some reason grasped the sleeve instead of the coat-hanger. (It was early, and I hadn't had any coffee yet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

My fingertips brushed against cloth and then encountered something strange.

I stopped.

I turned the sleeve over.

A flat black spider about the length of my fore-finger peered back up at me.

Me: ...

Spider: ?

Me: ...

Spider: ...

Me: Oh, you have GOT to be bloody kidding me!

Spider: *snigger*

I dropped the sleeve and bolted backwards, then watched the little bugger scuttle around the sleeve, peer out at me again - and then scuttle UP the arm of the suit.

And since it was getting late and I had to leave for my train, I leant forward, and told the quivering fabric that if it was still there when I got home, There Would Be Trouble, and It Would Involve The Suction Hose of Doom, also known as the Dyson that I can't really operate very well.

Then I had a train ride and most of the day to ponder the fact that I basically issued a death threat to a creature that probably isn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, and was having a nice cosy morning lie-in when it suddenly got felt up by a total stranger, and What The Hell?

I don't want to kill a spider for being a spider. Killing because we fear things is something humans do too fast and too easily, and it causes a great deal of utterly avoidable crap with ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Still, I had threatened, so I pretended to look for it in the wardrobe when I got home. I couldn't bring myself to touch the jacket.

There is webbing all over the side of the arm, and it was a pricey jacket that I can't replace easily.

I am arachnophobic to a fair degree - a couple of emergency room visits and hot tar bandages due to spider bites in S.A. gives me pretty fair basis for the phobia - and considering the size of said little bugger, I'm impressed that my reaction was more along the lines of WTF than hysterical screaming.

At some point I will need to get the jacket to the dry-cleaners, if I can bring myself to touch it again. 

In the meantime, unless the little arachnid of doom scuttles around in front of my nose on a day when I'm not feeling quite so live and let live, or dances over my pillow while I'm on it (there are limits, and that is definitely one of them), I'm going to pretend it escaped out of my window after I left the room, and is telling it's friends about the awful experience it had this morning.

I still say it sniggered at me, though.

Update: About 90 seconds after I'd posted this blog and climbed into bed, my carpet moved. A small section of it that looked remarkably like the spawn of Satan that has already trashed my suit sleeve charged over towards me. I made a noise like a very unhappy helium balloon, and had some trouble getting my feet to meet the floor this morning. I do believe I've just had war declared on me. Good intentions or not, I'm currently hunting bug bombs on Amazon.