Broome Family Blog: Bugs, bugs everywhere (and no where for me to run!)

So, I was all set to show you pictures from last Friday and our adventure through the (as my mom puts it) mini-tornado that hit our neighborhood with huge wind gusts, tons of rain, and more hail than I have every experienced. I will tell the long version at a later date I suppose. There is a much more pressing story that I must tell...

On Tuesday night I was really tired, but pulled myself off of the couch to go and do some laundry. Laney came with me to the door and I am sure that I was talking to her about how I did not want to do any laundry. I stepped down the stairs and started a load. I turned to Laney who was sniffing around the garbage can that is full of her dog food. Next to the garbage can was the biggest cricket I have ever seen. It was huge. Now those of you that know me understand that I hate crickets, especially the camel or spider crickets that jump so high and scare me!! (I make Andy come and rescue me from the shower and bathrooms when they are in there with me. Andy Laney usually has to join me to do laundry so she can scare them off before I go outside.) For some reason I decided to take a closer look at this monster cricket and held back my scream... momentarily. I got closer and so did Laney. That is when I saw it. The scariest thing that a person can see in there garage, that is attached to their house... What is saw was a giant RED DOT!!! I quickly pushed Laney back into the house and ran into the office to find Andy, saying very loudly, "There is a HUGE black widow spider in the garage!!!" With a roll of his eyes I could tell that Andy did not believe me. I told him, "Oh, you think that I am kidding; wait until you see it!" So we went outside and I showed him where I saw it. What was his response you ask..."Oh my gosh, that is the biggest black widow spider I have ever seen." So for a second I was very pleased with myself, until I remembered that there IS A BLACK WIDOW SPIDER IN MY GARAGE THAT IS ATTACHED TO MY HOUSE!!! It was then that I started to panic. Andy took one look at me and told me to have Laney take me back into the house because I was not helping the situation with my panic. Let's just say that I did not last long in the house. I did not really want to be near the spider but I could not stand to have my wonderful, cricket killing husband in danger where I could not attempt to save him if he needed it. (I know, I know, like I could really do anything, but that is what I was thinking!) Andy wanted to put the nasty, horrible thing into a jar. I wanted to spay it with bleach and GET IT OUT OF THE HOUSE! So after we made it scamper a bit. He sprayed it with some bug spray, caught its web on a stick and took it to the driveway where he put the jar on top of it. He then flipped it over using a piece of paper! I know you guys are not going to believe what happened next but it really did happen. I, Cameron Broome, took the paper off the top of the jar and screwed on the lid of the jar. After being chased in the garage, sprayed with bug spray the thing was STILL ALIVE. Through the jar we were able to get a good look at this nasty thing and this is what we saw! No joke. These pictures are from wikipedia but I will take a picture of the one that we currently have in a jar IN OUR GARAGE (I wanted to make it sleep/die on the front porch, but did not win that discussion so it is in the jar in our garage.) Here you go!