Let he without dust bunnies cast the first Swiffer.

The attitude towards housework here at the world headquarters of MarnCo�the ruthless multinational behind The Big Adventure�has always been, uh, casual. There have been times, for instance, when the refrigerator has inadvertently been the scene of recombinant DNA research.

Things slid to new lows this summer, however, as the spousal unit and I attempted to juggle work, keeping the yard, and adding porches on to our house at the same time. It did not help that we are presently without grass which means small mountains of sandy gravel get tracked into the house daily.

Yep, I think it is fair to say that if cleanliness is next to godliness then we have been living at The Gaping Maw to Hell.

Well, we have visitors arriving from Australia tonight. The last three days have been a veritable frenzy of housework on my part. While the house is still not really clean, I think I can safely claim that the Illusion of Clean has been created. Yes, yes I am the David Copperfield of housekeeping. Thank you for noticing.

However, there has been one small fly in the ointment, so to speak. The spiders.

Ever since we moved into this house back in 1977 I have observed a mutual non-aggression pact with the spiders. I do not bother them and they do not drop on my face while I sleep, paralyze me with poison, wrap me in web, and eat me bit by bit at their convenience.

I think we can all agree this is a fair trade-off.

However, this means that I do have the occasional spider. This year the situation is acute because it�s been a very wet year which is good for bugs and thus good for spiders. We�ve had some spiders outside our front window which look capable of taking a cat down.

Before I could wash the outside of the windows the spiders had to be dealt with. Because of my mutual non-aggression pact, I had to call in the spousal unit. There was much eye rolling on his part and the word �sissy� may have been bandied about. Fine. See if I care. The important point is that HE break the treaty not me.

He started with windows that had smaller spiders and vigorously pooh poohed my arachnophobia. Then he hit the front window. Where Spiderzilla sat. With four of her offspring, the Spiderzilla-ettes. Even the spousal unit was impressed.

He got a very, very long piece of wood and scooped her up and deposited her on a near-by hosta. He scooped up the Spiderzilla-ettes and deposited them beside their mother. Then he got on the ladder to wash the window. He was almost done when he looked down to see Spiderzilla beginning to climb up the ladder.

Yes, she had marched off her hosta, up the walk way, climbed up on the front step, and then started up the ladder back to her window home. The man who had not that long before mocked me, bandied the word �sissy� in my direction, was also the man who jumped off the ladder rather than step down the final rungs and risk tangling with Spiderzilla.

We debated whether or not to allow her to take back her window but decided that since it was the first thing our visitors would see, we would bow to propriety and again scoop Spiderzilla up, this time taking her further off into the woods.

So far, she has not reappeared.

Yet.

Do you think she�ll remember that it was the spousal unit and NOT me who destroyed her web, dispersed her children and dragged her off into the woods?

Gosh, I hope so.

--Marn

Generous Souls Sponsoring me to Run to Limp the 2004 Jog for the Jugs In Montreal, the few, the proud, the Bazonga Boosters:

Mileage on the Marnometer: 663.36 miles. .
Oh man. This is going to be hard
Goal for 2004: 1,000 miles - 1609 kilometers