My daughter might want to stay away from my nail polish for
a while. The nail polish is in the same
drawer as my make-up, my hair brushes, and the scissors for when my bangs start
to grow crooked. It is this drawer that
gapes open this morning when the disaster happens, which is why my daughter
might want to stay away from my nail polish.
But I digress.
I have great intentions of getting to work early. It's going to be blazingly hot, and I have
decided that I'm changing the daily assignment for all of my classes. No need to stand up and teach and have them
all talking and spreading more hot air into the classroom. It's bad enough that I cannot open the
windows because of the construction noise and dust and the workers' sometime
salty language. Besides, my son is away,
so I don't have to worry about moving cars in order to escape this
morning.
Yup, my plan is to get out of the house about fifteen
minutes ahead of schedule. I pack a
light lunch: watermelon and vanilla yogurt (which I discover later is
strawberry-banana yogurt that clashes terribly with watermelon), some wheat
thins, and a snack package of Milanos; truly, it is the lunch of
champions. I already have today's outfit
picked out, too: denim capris and a tank top (within the appropriate three-finger
shoulder rule so I don't get sent home for dress-code violation) along with the
sandals I got last year at DSW. My hair
is dry, deodorant's on, I'm nearly ready, and I'm almost beating the clock.
That's when I spot IT.
(This is the part where my daughter should probably turn
away.)
IT is a spider crawling on the wall by the light
switch. IT is a small bodied thing with
long thin legs, and it resembles a mid-sized Daddy Longlegs.
I could smack it with my hand. I mean, I'm not a huge fan of bugs, but I
don't mind swatting the ones that don't sting back … with the exception of
silverfish, which are the Devil's spawn.
I have a wad of paper towel nearby from wiping down the post-shower
mirror, so I use that in my stealth attack on IT.
The problem is that IT, skinny as IT is, survives the
initial smooshing and falls onto the counter between the cup dispenser and the
hand lotion. I attack a second time,
more boldly this time. When I lift the
paper to inspect my handiwork, the damn spider continues to crawl very quickly,
and plops into the open drawer.
I see IT scrambling between the container of colored
elastics (which are useless since I've cut off all my hair) and the two small
sample-sized bottles of anti-Floyd-the-Fibroid medication. Squish! Squish!
Squish! Goddamnit if IT isn't
still running around the drawer like some kind of miniature alien minotaur in a
maze.
I look at the clock; I look in the drawer. I look at the clock; I look in the drawer.
Screw IT. I have to get to work.
I apply my make-up, which is minimalist so it takes all of a
minute, pile the stuff back into the drawer with IT, and shut everything up
tightly for the day. IT can crawl around
in there all damn day as far as I am concerned.
It is now after 7:00 a.m.
Not only have I not left the house early, but I'm running late.
Little fucker.
I forget to warn my daughter that there is a spider setting
up house in my make-up drawer, a drawer in which she sometimes looks for nail
polish. The initial disaster happens
when IT falls into the make-up drawer in the first place. The second disaster will happen if my
daughter actually sees IT while holding a sharp bathroom implement like the
bangs-scissors or the splinter-tweezers or the nail clippers or my extremely
well-honed lipstick, which has been chiseled into deadly precision by overuse.
I have great intentions to get to work early. I have great intentions of killing off IT
before IT falls into the open drawer.
Neither happens exactly as I planned, so if anyone sees my daughter
today, you might want to pre-warn her to use her own nail polish (which she
usually does) for a few days.
There's a monster in my make-up drawer that has already
survived multiple assaults.
You've been
forewarned.
