My greatest hate versus my greatest fear

I got home last night late...at about 10:30 p.m. It was dark out, naturally. I let myself inside my house, locked the doors, and made sure that I didn't forget to bring my Bible upstairs with me. I climbed the first of two flights of stairs leading to my bedroom. On the second floor my host family mother was busy putting the kids on the toilet, hopefully avoiding accidents later on in the night (it was a 75% success...one managed to still have a full bladder even after that). I waved at one of the twins who couldn't really see me because he was still mostly asleep, and the light in the hallway had him blinded. I climbed the second set of stairs, letting myself into my bedroom.

Immediately, I noticed that something was wrong. Yes, the mess was still there, in the perfect order that I left it (if that's possible...an ordered mess). But the window was open. I opened it earlier that morning so that my bedroom could air out. Unfortunately, I left it open when I left the house after supper. I like to close it by 8:00 p.m. Why? Because when I leave the window my greatest hate enters the room, to plague me for the entire night.

Mosquitos. As soon as I closed the window I turned on the light. I let my eyes wander to the ceiling, the favorite hiding place of the majority of my late enemies. There it was. An unfamiliar black mark, way up out of reach. I say unfamiliar black mark because there are many black marks (sometimes with hints of red...presumably my blood) all over my ceiling. I like to think of them as my trophys. My dad has one deer head as a trophy back home. I've got a heck of a lot more black/red marks then dad has deer heads...and I've done nearly as much hunting for them. Ok, maybe a couple hours less.

So there it was. The non-squished black mark. And I knew I had to kill it. If I didn't, it would surely have a pleasant evening tormenting me by flying around my exremely ticklish ears. Not cool. With these ears, there's no chance of sleeping through a mosquito. At least I never get bit. However, I do lose sleep, which isn't good if I have to be up early with the little dears the next morning. And so, I knew I had to get this guy, and quickly. Time was ticking.

And so I searched. I searched high and low. Always search the ceiling first. There was nothing on the ceiling. And so I searched the curtain. Sometimes they land on the black curtain, making it next to impossible to see them. My eyes followed the gentle ripples of the dark material. When they reached the top right-hand corner they froze. Right in the tiny space between the curtain and the wall I saw what looked like a tear in the material. I noticed that the thread fibers that make up the material were very thick and longer than normal, especially since I had never noticed them before...and I've inspected that curtain many times. Being a very curious person I decided to investigate the rip further. I pushed the curtain a bit to the side to get a better look, and the fibers moved, in different direction, going up and down, not only side to side. And then I knew.

It was my greatest fear. A spider. And a very large spider,at that. Suddenly, the mosquito was forgotten. I did a great job holding in all my squeals and shreeks. Nobody else heard them. I also stood in the center of my room, trying to figure out what to do. How was I going to sleep in the same room as that ugly, evil, creepy beast??

Finally, I caved. I had to sleep, otherwise the children wouldn't be surviving the following day. The only way to overcome my greatest fear was by...applying for Fear Factor. Just kidding. I decided that I had to befriend the offending spider. Of course, this didn't mean that I walked up to it and shook hands/paws (as the Dutch would call it) with the thing. Instead I named it. She has to be a she because she's my roomate. I won't room with a guy, at least, not until I'm married. So, she's a she. And her name is Fran. Why? I have no idea. It's the first name that came to mind.

And so, I climbed into bed, having not found the mosquito and not exactly knowing what else to do, I went to bed. It wasn't long before the mosquito buzzed around my very ticklish ears, and it was not much longer before I added to the trophys on my ceiling. Later in the night, I added one more. And after that, there were no problems sleeping. Just blissful rest.