Showing posts with label boats and spiders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boats and spiders. Show all posts

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Fly Oh Fly

There is one fly, a friendly fly. He's on my feet and in my eye.
I wish the hell he'd just fly out. I chase, I swat, I scream and shout.
He takes a nap upon my toe. Where I am, he has to go.
He sleeps at night on a banana peel. Wakes me up at six with a squeal.
The door is open, won't he take a hint? Must I spell it out in fine print?
I grabbed a book and swat him dead. I can still hear him in my head.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

We Surrender to our Spider Overlords

Boats and spiders just seem to go together. The first few nights I lived aboard, I was covered in spider bites. I could actually see the fang marks on my forearm with one particularly nasty bite. I started my campaign against the spiders. I spider bombed the boat when we were gone overnight. I sprayed the dock lines every couple days. I sprayed a lot of places. And it seemed to be working, for awhile. But then I'd step out into the cockpit in the morning only to walk through an enormous web. I started seeing spiders on the outside of the boat, webs were popping up overnight like Starbucks in gentrifying neighbourhoods. I was losing the battle. Just the other days, I was sitting in the cabin with my laptop open when a little spider dropped down from his long single thread right between me and the screen. I heard him ask, "What are you doing, updating your status on Facebook?". In May, I couldn't bear the thought of a spider in the same room with me. Now, I grabbed that nosy little spider in my fist and squeezed tight, merely wiping the carnage on my jeans. As the season wears on, you become a lot less squirmish about all kinds of things.