Things I Need to Learn (Part 1 of a 34,875 Part Series)

It's official. We are moving back to Salt Lake City.

Something else official: I will be a college grad with no job who moves into her parent's basement.

At least I come complete with a husband and nifty mini laptop! I'm like the new breed of underachievers.

Seriously though, I'm excited. We won't live with my folks for too long. Only until they start charging rent...or leaving the bathroom door open. I've heard old people do that. Note to mom and dad, that is how you get your child to move out.

Mike starts his job in a few weeks, but I will stay here for a few weeks after that until the office can function without us.

This got me thinking about all the things I need to learn to do on my own. Like cook. And pump gas. And get things out of the disposal (I swear I don't know how that got in there).

Here's what I'm most scared of not being able to do - kill spiders. I remember long ago when Mike and I worked different hours I was home alone and there was this huge spider the size of a small cat in the hallway. I froze. I think it hissed at me. I backed away slowly and got a Tupperware bowl from the kitchen. I've seen people on TV trap spiders under cups and I thought I could do that - it would be there when Mike got home to take care of. I got as close to the thing as I possibly could (and by "close" I mean "at least 6 feet away") and I threw the bowl at it. Guess what happened? It didn't land perfectly trapping the spider, oh no, it bounced off the wall and just pissed off the spider-cat thing. It started to move at incredible speeds and so I yelled at it. You know how when you're confronted by a bear, you're supposed to act all big and scary? I did that.

So there I was waving my arms and jumping around and yelling at the intruder and you know what? It stopped moving. Yep. The bear trick works. On spiders at least.

But now I have a problem. I can't do these calisthenics until Mike gets home. Not only because I was naked (I think I forgot to mention that I had just taken a shower and it was blocking the way to the bedroom) but because I had to go to work. And I definitely couldn't tell them a spider was holding me hostage and I couldn't come in. So I called my friend Kylie who calmly talked me through getting some hair spray to try to freeze the spider in place. But instead of hairspray, I got the industrial strength roach kill I found under the kitchen sink. And I sprayed that sucker like I was in the final scenes of a Rambo movie. I held the bottle in both hands and swept it back and forth as the spider was trying to evade me while yelling at the top of my lungs. And I may or may not have had one of Mike's ties around my head.

But finally I did it. I killed it. It crumpled up into a little ball and died.

The carpet and I were never the same.

The only problem now was that its carcass was lying in front of the bedroom door. What if it was faking its own death in an evil plot to destroy me?

So I went downstairs to the laundry room, found some semi-clean stuff, put it on, went to work and never spoke of the incident again. At least until Mike got home and found the crime scene.

So, yeah, there's a few things I need to learn before he goes.