I am the worst person

on earth.

Know why?

Because I cannot stand, cannot abide, am enraged/nauseated/sickened by "School Zones."

Did I miss something? Sometimes I think I've missed all these dangers. At exactly what point did it become necessary to lower all speed limits on all roads within 57 miles of any sort of educational institution to like 20 miles an hour?

I cross a school zone once in a while, when I cannot plan my entire day around avoiding it. This morning, however, I tried to drive down the road to get on the highway. I left the house at 0732. My freakin' mistake.

The two or so miles between here and the expressway took 1,000 years. Going roughly 20. Oh, once in a while, the school zone would end, but then I'd be within 500 yards of a possible potential route for some simpering child, and it would drop back down.

Did I see any children? No. No children. But the mere possibility of children, and the possibility of possibily causing them harm if they wandered, drooling and confused, into the street...well, we can't have that.

Because Children Are The Future.

A phenomenally stupid future, if blinking crosswalks manned by old people with handheld stopsigns, roadguard vests and flashlights can't get them across a road.

But we all love children, right?

And some of us love children more than the rest of us. They are Better People, because they care so darn much about the future. Know how you can tell who they are?

They are the morons who drive 14mph in the school zone, instead of 20, because that might not be quite safe enough.

This is the sort of thing that would drive me insane in any situation - I can be honest about that. But the worst of it is that I never have to navigate through large groups of young people walking to school. Or zipping along on bikes. Because they don't do that. It appears that children are now driven to school. I see more SUVs lined up dropping kids off than I see buses.

I can pretty much count the number of times I was dropped off at school as a kid on one hand. I rode the bus! For more than an hour! And I liked it!

The children of Texas. Apparently, too stupid to cross roads, and too lazy to walk their happy asses to school.

Harumph.

(And hey - why do church schools get these signs? They're not supposed to be getting my tax dollars, so why am I paying for signs with blinking lights outside Our Lady Of Perpetual Self-Flagellation? If Jesus loves you, he'll get you across the road even if I am doing 35)

It's like...

having my guts ripped out by weasels.

Module One of this godawful online course had 17 pages.
Module Two had 27.
I just opened Module Three, and it has 46.

Fortunately, I can listen to the audio and blog, or play Minesweeper. Coherence may suffer, but I think we're all used to that.

You know, when I first got to Iraq, we had a truly bizarre safety requirement. We had to prepare one of the Army's whiz-bang composite risk management matrices before we rolled out.

There is, of course, a process for this. You first identify hazards. Then you assess the severity of the hazard. Then you identify controls to mitigate the risks, then you re-assess the risk's severity in light of the mitigation. Got it?

The process works alright in garrison.
Example: Vehicles are being driven to the fuel point.
Risk 1 is death of soldiers in vehicles as a result of collisions.
Risk 2 is running over innocent bystanders.
It is, we'll say, a moderate-risk activity (degree of risk is determined by a combination of likelihood and severity of possible damage).
We'll mitigate those risks by making soldiers wear helmets and seatbelts (risk 1) and using groundguides (risk 2)
Now it's a low-risk activity. Voila!

Not so well in a war. The daily discussion went something like this...

The first sergeant and the commander would stand around and look at a blank risk matrix. As the operations NCO, I would stand respectfully behind them.

Sir, Top would say, the risks are death, total loss of a vehicle, major injuries, and major vehicle damage.
The commander would nod and look annoyed, and the first sergeant would continue, peering at the matrix.
That's pretty likely, sir, and even if we say it's only kinda-likely, it's still all real severe.
That's where I'd make my contribution, saying, "but let's mitigate all that by wearing helmets!"
The commander would sigh, and the first sergeant would write slowly in the little blocks, trying to mitigate the risks.
Sir, he'd conclude, always with a properly sorrowful tone, we still have high risk of real bad shit.
I'd usually offer more helpful input. "Does that mean we can skip today's mission and go back to sleep and wait for peace to break out?"
And that was the part where the first sergeant would point out that it was an appropriate time for me to shut the hell up and take the pre-mission paperwork up to the TOC.

Enough story-telling! My course is now explaining Heinrich's Accident Causation Model. I best go pay attention. Maybe the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is next. That would be entertaining. And hard to put on a matrix....

Sometimes when I don't blog

...it's because you all really don't want to know.

The Mister was diagnosed by the crack Navy medical team down at JRB with some sort of nasty foot skin condition. Does that sound like fun or what? Ointments are involved.

Jack stole a string of shiny plastic beads off the Christmas tree. I'm not sure if he hid them in the yard or actually ate them. If he ate them, I'm not sure if it was as a string or in smaller pieces. Trust me, I will take pictures if this develops into a Great Pooping Moment.

The annual gift-buying debacle is almost at an end. Now I'm left with wrapping. Super. As an American, I should be better at expressing my love by people stuff, but I really suck at it. I love you, here's a nice flashlight just doesn't seem to cut it. [sigh]

I'm trying to have a gift for my Dad delivered to a remote location Up Home. Of course, it seems to be traveling with a signature requirement that I did not request, and so now I have to call the delivery company and shriek. In short, I am being forced to become one of my customers.

My (paternal) grandmother is back in the hospital. Third time in less than a month. Nothing makes you feel like a jackass more than deciding to stay in Texas for Christmas and having your Grandma in the hospital back home.

[grumble grumble]

Well, the fabled "busy season" seems to have kicked off at work. There are three people back in our little section, and one of them is already out with some extended medical issues.

Of course, this is the point at which the Army decides they need me for four days scattered among the next ten. My boss actually had kittens yesterday when I gave him copies of the orders.

"Why couldn't they do this in January?" he asked.

"Because if it's not screwing up your life, it's not the Army."

However, because I like the remaining coworker who has no issues preventing her from working, and because I am on the team, I agreed to work some extended hours on the days I am available so we can keep our heads above water. And so my nice coworker doesn't have to shoot anyone.

So I'm off an hour early, and will stay an hour later. It's certainly not the worst thing ever, but it will make for an annoying week.

Under Siege

I work next to a bunch of phone sales agents. They're paid on commission, and there's some low flat hourly rate to supplement that when they're not making sales, as I understand it.

Of course, this is the month preceding Christmas, so business has picked up a little.

I'm not sure what sort of paid time off setup they have, but I think someone needs to look into the compensation for "sick days" for them. Because they're dragging in with every kind of coughing, hacking, snurfling and moaning ailment known to humanity.

Apparently, nobody wants to be out sick and miss the opportunity to make big sales. Ugh.

I, however, would love to miss the opportunity to catch all of their nasty viruses.

Alas...fortified with extra vitamin C, dressed warmly and well-hydrated, I'm going to work. I have to stop at Tractor Supply, and perhaps I'll see if they have some sort of agricultural protective clothing that I can wear. Maybe a calving/lambing suit and a respirator, and some sort of dairy barn disinfectant I can spray the entire office with?

Blaah.

I'm blaming this lethargic melancholy on the time change. Or maybe it's melancholic lethargy. Either way, I've been dragging around the past couple days feeling mildly grumpy about not much of anything.

Then again, it might be because the Mister is out of town (in the military sense), and I seem to spend every moment I'm awake and in the house collecting the socks and other objects Jack is dragging around.

You know, I've been trying to work on this whole thing where you exercise your dog, and so then they're like all calm and mellow and nice to have around, right?

That's a giant load of crap. You know what exercise has done for my little puptard? I have a really really fit Bad Dog. He's like a damn triathlete. Jump on the dining room table? No problem! Streeeetch way up to pull the household copy of FMFM 6-5, The Marine Rifle Squad, off the book shelf? No problem! Race tirelessly around and around and around the yard with my favorite pair of boot socks? No problem!

(This is of course an entirely separate issue than trying to figure out why, of all the books on the shelf, he wanted that one. Is he plotting something? A coup?)

Less-than-positive indicators

I went to bed early last night so I could wake up at an ungodly hour and drive 38 miles for an appointment that, as it turned out, didn't happen.

Drove back like a bat out of Hell (insert appropriate Meatloaf track here) to let dogs out and avoid house pees. Good thing I came back, because the Mister and I had managed to somehow lock Jack outside this morning when we left.

[sound of head slapping into open palm]

Now I must go to the gas station (the morning's jaunt has me sucking fumes) and head to work.

This is going to be a truly outstanding day. I can tell already.

ugh...

Sorry, y'all. We're not a year old here yet, so you all haven't been through this part of the summer with me yet. We're now at the point where I haven't really watched the news in weeks. Unless I catch something on my brief morning web surf, I have no idea what's going on in the world.

They say there was some sort of debate last night - I didn't watch it. The candidates all make my eyes bleed, and there's more than a year left until they go away. For once I didn't mind the cartoons.

There's also apparently some article in the New Republic about the faceless hive mind that is The Troops, and rumor has it the article would make my blood boil. I thought about reading it, but realized TNR is a subscription website and I don't give enough of a shit about reading some numbnuts' take on the world to out and buy the current magazine. I'd rather give my money to Home Despot or an ammo company.

I'll have something for y'all eventually, I swear. Until then, I'm just going to be running in the morning, working in the daytime and hiding from the cartoon network in the evening.

Oh yeah - and cleaning. 'Cause Mom is coming to town Thursday night. Ugly wallpaper, your days are numbered.

Hatin'

I'm having a cranky evening. I could kick puppies. But I won't.

In the interest of not sowing hate and rage around the internet, I will share, instead of my rage, a picture of what I ran across this morning when, as I was wandering around with my coffee, I noticed I had only one dog.

Apparently, they believe that Girl Child's futon is just perfect for group sleeping.



A smarter woman than I would have stolen a bed dog and returned to the rack. Alas, I didn't. But to spare y'all any more griping, I shall go now.

Oh! In good news, my Texas DL did arrive today. Crappy picture (although not the worst ever, by a long shot), and I think it's the flimsiest driver license I've ever had. Old Lone Star State ain't wasting any taxpayer money on those, let me tell you.

Okay - one more gratuitous black dog pic. He's trying wearing his ear in the European style.

Abby's Tips for Decent Customer Service

I just got off the phone with Auntie M, who has been going through her own special Hell with AOL.

Considering the holes in walls and my dashboard from various recent interactions with Kenmore/Sears, Sprint/Nextel, the Title Company From Hell, and a wide variety of other largely Satanic entities, I thought I'd throw out a simple set of concepts that might be helpful to any of my loyal readers who are thinking of starting their own business that might require, you know, customers.

1 - Everybody has a supervisor. If you are not empowered to help whomever you're talking to, you're also not being paid enough to cover for the people who can. Don't tell me you don't have a supervisor - I bet you don't own the company, and given that, I bet there's someone who ensures you show up and put on your headset every morning.

2 - Greet people. I know that some customers like to rattle on a little, but I bet you're being paid by the hour. Answering a call with an abrupt "ThankyouforcallingEvilConglomerate, GiveMeYourTenDigitPhoneNumberAreaCodeFirst," is a no-go. Particularly when you're passing a customer up the food chain - if I've been on the phone with you for an hour, you're aware of my phone number. Stop asking for it.

3 - Don't give your phone reps a stupid script. If I've been struggling mightily to resolve an issue and your representative has been unhelpful for twenty minutes, I do not want to hear "thank you for calling EvilConglomerate, I hope you've had a wonderful interaction with our company today!" Are you fucking insane? My interaction with your company has been the customer-service equivalent of a nasal hysterectomy. It's bad enough if you're evil, please don't also be stupid.

You know, there seems to be a theory out there that providing a lot of terrible customer support is as good or better than providing good customer support. But it ain't so. Putting people on the phone who are not empowered to do anything might allow you to hire people who cost next to nothing, but wading through human ferns costs you money by pissing off customers. 100 useless monkeys could probably be replaced by 20 empowered and functional representative who can operate without a script, and they won't create an entire demographic of people who are entirely willing to burn your headquarters to the ground.

I cannot think of a single company I deal with, whether buying gas, ammunition, internet access or plane tickets, that is a sole source. I can always go somewhere else. So can everyone else in the world. Dealing with large companies is slowly becoming so painful that we're all going to start building our own shit rather than doing it. When you think about the red-hot-poker-in-the-eye that is, say, NorthWest Airlines, it doesn't make getting a pilot's license and buying a plane sound so crazy, does it?

It's all too much. I'm going to take my grumpy ass off to bed. Perhaps I'll take a nice warm shower (water heated by Atmos Energy - where the ladies who answer the phone call you by name and act like they give a shit), then read a little (light provided by Commerce energy, who turned my power on with a minimum of drama, exactly when they said they would). But first I'll lock up the gunsafe (made by Sentry, who will send you replacement parts if you break your shit and be cheerful about it), and ensure my bedside handgun is where it belongs (which I purchased from Kastle Keep Firearms in Largo, Florida, because the sales guys are smart and helpful).

I'm seriously just focused on the day when I can be a hermit in a cabin and don't have to deal with anyone ever again.

Waiting, patiently

For the M1 carbine fairy.

(Imagine with me for a moment, if you will, exactly what the M1 carbine fairy would look like...)

Anyway. It went Priority on Thursday, but I didn't worry about delivery confirmation, so I simply assume it arrived in a timely manner. Monday afternoon, the CMP guys posted the picture of their mail.



And they said there were an additional three tubs sitting on the floor.

[sigh]

And yes, I did open the imagine and zoom in on it to see if I could spot my envelope. No luck - the resolution was too low. Yeah, I'm a freak.

Of course, some evil lucky ratbastards are getting the "we've opened your order and we're dealing with it so don't call and bug us" email. I, not surprisingly, have not.

[sigh] (and these are whiny, bummed sighs today)

I'd actually just be thrilled if this shows up before I head to Texas. I'm really not sure how likely that is. But it WOULD make things simpler, so we can probably be safe in the assumption it WON'T work out that way.

A little knowledge

Can be a terrible thing. Sparky recently learned he can "play" with Jack. Mostly, this consists of Sparky antagonizing him, then, while yapping, darting under some object Jack can't get beneath. Sparky then yaps while Jack furiously tries to fit under the bed, or the coffee table, or the lawn chair. Then Sparky runs out the other side, nips the puppy, and races away yapping. Jack, of course, whines, yips and growls throughout.

How fun, you say! How cute!

I woke up this morning far too early. I stay up late and I sleep late. Don't hate me - I'll have a job again soon. I love - love love love - that period in the morning that involves waking up slowly.

This morning I woke when a yapping yorkie dashed across my chest and dove for cover on the right side of my torso. Then a black face and paws appeared directly to my left, and a pink tongue lolled in my face.

"Grrr....yap! Yap yap!" said Sparky.

"Yip! Woof! Rarrrrgh rarrrgh," replied Jack.

"Shut the fuck up and go away," suggested Abby.

So Sparky launched himself off the bed and raced around to Jack's side to bark at him. As Sparky leaped to safety (again) and landed on my legs, Jack suddenly realized that he, too, is capable of jumping entirely onto the bed. Onto my face.

After some thorough cursing, I flung both dogs off the bed and trudged out into the living room. Then dashed back into the bedroom for some clothes when I noticed the Cubans still working on my windows.

After finding some garments, I tried again. The Boys were sitting on the floor, looking innocent. Casey was stretched out on the couch, and appeared to be enjoying my irritation. I think she believes it serves me right for not letting her be an only dog. She's probably right.

[insert scream here]

[continue scream].............................................



[still screaming]



OK. Oh Lord. I just broke my coffee cup. Slipped right out of my hand and landed on the tile. There were shards. And coffee everywhere. I was on the phone with MC and I was just dumbstruck. I mean...it's my coffee cup. And now it's broken.

"You can call me back," she said, gently.

I cleaned up the mess (it had been full at the time of its demise).

RIP, German Sherpherd cup. I loved you, and we could have spent many years together, being happy.



However, I realize I need to move on. I can't allow the loss of the G. Shep cup to totally paralyze me. So I walked to the cup/glass shelf and tried to pick a stand-in. None of Mr. Abby's cups would do - a coffee cup is a personal thing. Here's Option 1.



I'm just not feelin' for Baghdad Bob. This was my run-up to war coffee cup. It's also too small. Let's see Option 2.



Ahh....no. I hate the goose cup. I don't even know where it came from. And it, too, is small. Let's have Option 3.



This is it. It's my stand-in until I get the next at-home standby. I'm not nuts about the handle shape, and it's another small cup, but I liked my Minnesota gun club very much and it will do for now.

I'm sorry, I need to go stare at the shard of the G. Shep cup and cry now...

Just over a month...

Til' Abby is outta here. I cannot wait.

The Slumlords (who are really pretty nice folks) have been trying to sell the duplex we live in for...well, eight or nine months? Problem is, in addition to the bottom having totally fallen out of the Tampa real estate market, this particular structure is...in need of demolition.

Those of you who've been reading for a while remember the roof leak.

And the water heater. Just in case, I'll repost the water heater picture here.

So apparently, all that aside, they decided they should STUCCO the place. Yeah. That'll help. New stucco will look great when the roof collapses.

So people have been hammering away (literally) at the exterior all morning to remove the heavy steel bars that cover my windows. Yes. The bars.

Jesus.

This entire undertaking will probaby stretch into tomorrow, but I'm hoping that'll be it.

WLSR - broadcasting in my backyard

That would be "Loser Radio," perhaps better known as my super-creepy across-the-back-fence neighbor.

Dude's probably in his 40s, balding, and apparently unemployed. I haven't had any reason to believe he's done anything gainful in the entire time we've lived here. Nor can I see any evidence of anyone else living there.

Dude drinks a LOT of beer (I run past his trash cans - I know these things), and I wouldn't be entirely surprised if he sells a little pot (traffic patterns lead me to thing drugs, clientele leads me to think marijuana). He's trashy and creepy, but seems friendly enough.

He used to wave and try to strike up conversation. Cheerfully encouraging Casey to do her snarling police dog routine whenever he leaned over the fence put a stop to that, though.

Problem is...the music. Pretty much every evening, it's loud. I mean like all my windows and doors are shut and I can hear it loud. And it's normally 70s-era guitar crap. Once in a while something I recognize, but often just chords. There's a possibility this is a guy with his own guitar who can only play two or three chords. I just don't know.

Friday and Saturday nights it's super-tiresome. The same thing, played again and again, punctuated only by the sound of him dumping another crate of glass empties into the outdoor trash can.

It annoys me, but really, given our neighborhood, it's just one of those things. But occasionally he pulls something a little odd.

I swear he was just broadcasting Alanis Morrisette's "Jagged Little Pill." WTF? It has occured to me that a well-placed round in the electric meter that faces our yard would provide at least temporary relief, and I can't imagine the other neighbors would rat me out. Food for thought.

Pure unadulterated irritation

We know that Abby has to use a laundromat to achieve clean clothes. Well, I can (and do) occasionally use a bucket, but for real laundry...it's the laundromat.

I used to use the Outdoor Laundromat, which is kind of exotic and interesting, while at the same time maintaining the tradition of tackiness that's so important to such businesses. However, the combination of biting insects, inefficient dryers and some really creepy clients moved me a couple of miles to City Wide Laundry.

City Wide changed owners last fall. A younger gentleman bought the place, spruced it up and kept it clean and in good order. He appeared to have just one employee, an old fat woman. City Wide takes in laundry as well as offering facilities to do your own, so both Young Guy and Fat Lady were always busy. Normally, they managed to do client laundry and keep the place tidy while staying out of the way of those there to wash clothes. They were chatty - it was a pretty good place to do laundry.

So I started going there. I spend anywhere from $12 (if it's just me here) to $35 (all three kids, towels, beach towels, bedding) per trip.

My last visit was last Friday during the day. It seemed there was a new employee. A younger gal, quite pudgy, rabbit-mouthed, coke-bottle glasses, red hair, perpetually stunned look. She was obviously still figuring out the required rhythm of the place - she had laundry stalled in several stages and was slowing down the whole process.

That was not the problem. Her child was the problem. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the slightly Hispanic-looking small boy (maybe 3?) racing around the building, screaming, touching things, climbing on folding tables, pushing carts and generally being underfoot, belonged to her.

After a while, a Puerto Rican guy showed up (I know he's Puerto Rican because it says so on his tricked-out Honda Civic). Ahhh, I thought, here's Dad to pick the little bugger up! Well, no. Here was Dad, with McDonald's bags. Passing out lunch led to the wee little beastie continuing all his earlier rampaging, but with a fucking hamburger that he seemed to enjoy smearing on every available surface. After lunch, Dad proceeded to hang out with a buddy in the parking lot while El Nino carried on terrorizing the laundromat.

I was pissed. But I wrote it off. I'm like Gandhi that way. You know...easy-going.

But then I returned today. Same setup, minus the hamburger but with more patrons. Well, and add it an elderly couple on bicycles that I can only assume were Mr. Puerto Rico's parents. It was a regular old family get-together at the laundromat. Fuckkit. I'm taking my average of $22 a week and going elsewhere. I don't need that shit.

C'mon, people. I don't like your children. I don't think they're cute, and I don't like to have them pestering around while I'm trying to do something.

I don't bring a 12-pack of beer and carton of cigarettes to Chuck E. Cheese, then sit around cleaning my guns in the middle of the Skee-ball games. Why do you do the reverse?

Seriously. There's a Kid World, and a Grownup World, and an Everybody World. Friendly's, Red Robin, Chuck E. Cheese, Disney World and the like make up Kid World. WalMart, McDonald's, parks, zoos and beaches fall into Everybody World. The rest of the country is Grownup World.

I'm not saying kids shouldn't appear in Grownup World, but it's our world, and they're guests in it. If I see your kid in grownup world, I assume you're socializing him. Which means I am counting on you to snatch that little rugrat up by the collar and square him away if he's racing around in the bank. I expect to see the white-knuckled-forearm-pinch coupled with the Mom Look Of Death when Junior is getting his tantrum on at Jiffy Lube.

I'm going to make this real simple. Kids are fine. They're certainly necessary, since we can't have grownups forever without having some kids around. But childhood is a transitory state. It's a process. The goal is to get them through childhood and into adulthood.

So Kid World needs to stay over there on the other side of the tracks. Grownup World needs to remain just that - a place you take your kids to teach them to be grownups. Workplaces, business and the like are not fucking Gymboree. Stop it.

Good lord. I'd go to the Green Iguana and have a drink, but I'm concerned it might be "cartoon and balloon day."

Ridiculous

This is absurd. Apparently, the prospect of a road trip and job interviews has me so geeked that I am incapable of sleep.

I'm normally pretty much nocturnal, but I tend to be knocked out by 0300. I just tried for the second time tonight to fall asleep. Nada. When I caught myself doing pushups in bed (too see how that felt with my feet tucked over the mattress), I figured I may as well give up.

I've tried everything. James Patterson paperback? No luck. Two hours of reading flashlight reviews online? Buddy, if that doesn't work - nothing will.

So I'm going to go get some breakfast.

Seeing as I was busy today (yesterday? Thursday) and really was tired earlier tonight (last night?), I assume this will all lead to me falling asleep around 1030 and running late to the vet.

Confused

So I ordered a couple of shirts online. One for me, and one for Mr. Abby. I also ordered (from a different company), some ammunition.

One of those two orders has shipped, and I have no idea which. It hasn't registered with UPS to the degree that it's telling me where it's come from, so I'm totally confused.

The automated notice says the package weighs six pounds. That sounds like a lot for the shirt, but probably not enough for the ammo.

I hope it's the shirts.

UPDATE: Nope. It's the ammo. How annoying.

Ugh...

Okay...so about the nicotine patch. I picked up a packet yesterday at the exchange. I just passed a very long night, so let's take a look at the instructions again, shall we?

Some of the notes:

- nicotine can increase your heartbeat. OK - that explains the heart racing all night.
- if you have vivid dreams or sleep disturbances, you may remove the patch at bedtime and apply a new one in the morning. I didn't sleep more than 45 minutes continuously at any point. But the vivid dreams weren't all bad.
- while wearing the path, you may experience one or more of the following side effects: nausea (not yet - not inclined), dizziness (nope), dry mouth (oh yes, and let me tell you about my boogers!), diarrhea (great), nervousness or restlessness (fabulous), headache (not yet), vivid dreams or other sleep disturbances (yee-haw!), and irritabiliy (like anyone would notice).

I think I'm going to go to Starbucks now...

Jesus. In bed for nine hours, thrashing the whole time checking the clock, and the strangest shit dancing through my head. I'm giving this another night, then I'm going to try sleeping without it.

Standoff

So I got back from the Clenched-Ass Run From Hell. And I was sitting around, watching a movie. For some reason I glanced out toward the kitchen. And saw it.



A goddam wolf spider. From the University of Florida, we know the following:

Wolf spiders belong to the family Lycosidae. They are very common and usually found on the ground, where they are well-camouflaged. The Carolina wolf spider (Lycosa carolinensis), at 25 mm to 35 mm, is the largest in the United States. These spiders do not spin webs but some dig burrows or hide under debris. Like other hunting spiders, they have good eyesight and are sensitive to vibrations.

They're not poisonous, but this little fucker is on borrowed time. Please understand - this spider is as large or larger than the round fired by the chain gun on the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter. I'm all about the happy animals, but I cannot sleep while there is some sort of enormous nocturnal hunting spider roaming my house.

Now, these are clever spiders. We had a couple of them move in...I dunno. A while ago. I explained to Mr. Abby that if he did not kill them, I would shoot them. With a shotgun. In the house.

Upon further reflection, that's probably not technically the best way for me to handle this. Most effective and gratifying - certainly. But I think there would be paperwork.

My next preferred method is the vaccuum. However, the vaccuum is right next to the loveseat, under which the Beast seems to have established its Giant Spider Forward Operating Base. I will not be lured in that easily.

So I need a whacking tool. And one that does not require me to get close to the Beast. Magazines are out.

- CRAP! - I just got up to locate a whacking tool. I was thinking of my five-gallon plastic water can. But I forgot that because I am prepared (stupid hurricane-prone Florida), it's full. Five gallons of water weighs 40 pounds. I can certainly carry it, but I cannot chase a spider around the house, swinging it wildly.

So - scratch that part about whacking it. I bravely approached the loveseat and took charge of the vaccuum. When the Beast shows itself...well, people, it will be game on.

Once I suck it up, I have some loose birdshot that I will suck up in order to ensure it is deader'n shit. I learned that from my Mom. Suck 'em up, pelt 'em, then put the vaccuum outside. Giant spiders are like zombies - you can't be too sure that they're gonna stay dead.

It may be a long night here at BDC, because I am NOT sleeping while this thing is in the house.