Written by Jeff Roney. Originally posted on April 28, 2010
Britney, Jen and Things with 8 Legs
When a guy hears the famous scream “There’s a huge spider in the bathroom!” he runs in with a welding mask, Kevlar vest and a paintball gun to destroy this “humongous” beast that is threatening his honey. Turns out, it’s some no-name teeny spider crawling along minding its own business. Most guys respond the same way – “That’s not a huge spider”. After that, his honey yells “Get it!”
Get it.
What does that mean? Do I trap and release it in the wild? If I don’t take the spider far enough away from the house, will it find its way back and know where to hide better next time? Should I blindfold the spider? How many eyes does a spider have? Do I need to use one blindfold for each eye? Do I have to treat the captured spider like a POW? Do I have to offer it food and water while I transport it to its new home? Will I appear before an insect tribunal if I mistreat the spider? So much to think about.
That doesn’t make much sense. Wait. Do you think she meant “Kill it!” without saying the word ‘kill’? Hmmmmm, so ‘get’ means ‘kill’. Got it. Woman translation issue.
So I go in, armed with a rolled up magazine and start to swing…
“Stop!!!!” she yells.
“What?” I ask.
“Don’t use that magazine!”
“What’s wrong with using the [unrolling to see the cover] ‘Will
Jennifer Anniston ever find love?’ issue?”
“I was saving it!”
“Saving it?”
“Yeah, use the ‘Britney Breaks Down Again,’ magazine. Here [hands me the other issue]. Hurry, get the spider!”
“Honey, I love you with every fiber of my being, but I can’t believe I’m having a discussion with you about which magazine to use to kill a spider with.”
“I don’t want spider guts on Jen’s face”
“But Britney’s face is okay for the spider guts?”
“Yes, kill the spider! Hurry!”
“What if Britney cleans up her act, has a great album, and becomes a star again?”
“No. She’ll probably get mad at Kevin for forgetting to send a child support check, then call Paris and ask her to go out partying, forgetting to wear her underwear again. Brit Brit gets the spider guts. Kill it!!!!”
Britney Spears became the spider killer – Jennifer Anniston was spared. You’re welcome, Jen.
I also want to discuss the eye problems women have. I’m not sure how it happens, but the “huge” spider they are afraid of gets much smaller by the time the guy walks in. Why is that? Don’t know.
Insects fear men.
It’s true, because men are lazy mad scientists. Men will rarely go to a store and buy the proper spray for a particular pest. They will be “creative” with their pest control. Men will use anything under the kitchen sink to get rid of bugs. I’m serious.
Jeff’s “Go To Insect Spray When There Isn’t The Right Insect Spray To Go To” Spray
Another story about me, my wife and an insect (Wasp actually).
My wife (who was my girlfriend at the time) and I went into her apartment one day and a wasp decided to fly in and join us. No knock-knock. No “Could I join you both for a little ‘Hide and Sting’ party?” Nothing.
My wife sees the wasp, and runs into the bathroom and slams the door.
It took a second, but I realized that its just me and a wasp – alone in her front room. I don’t want to go near the wasp, so I say to my girlfriend (Who will be my wife if I survived this) “I hope you’re okay in the bathroom safe and sound. What do you want me to do with the wasp?”
The classic response came, “Get it!”
Now, we’ve discussed that already, so I responded, “How? Verbal abuse?”
“I don’t know, just get it!”, she yelled. I could tell the wasp was getting bored with our exchange.
“Do you have any hairspray in there?” I asked my wife (still in the bathroom, I might add).
“Noooooo……” she says, as if I should know the answer already.
“No? Didn’t you ladies have any left over from the 80’s?”
With a sigh she responded, “Let me check.”
“Okay, I’ll just make some tea, then” I replied. The wasp shakes his little wasp head at the exchange.
“Here!” She opens the door and throws it out onto the floor outside the door.
“Couldn’t you hand it to me?” I ask, a trifle irritated.
“No, the wasp might get in here.”
I crept up and picked up the hairspray bottle. It was a pump spray bottle.
Pump spray bottle.
I pressed on the pump button to spray it, and it wouldn’t spray.
I was Pump Spray-less man with a wasp overhead and a girlfriend in the bathroom.
I could have left, but then I would have never lived to create this fantastical blog.
The wasp flew over my head and into her bedroom.
I shut the bedroom door. Ta da! I have captured the wasp.
I proudly announced, “Honey, you can come out now!”
She cracked the door a bit, “Did you get it?”
“Better than that. I trapped it!” I was so proud of myself at that moment.
“Trapped it??? Where?”
“In your bedroom.” Again, a proud moment for me.
“My what!?!?!?!” Her shout was so loud the wasp must have winced his little wasp face at the roaring voice.
“You’re, bed…”
The realization of my faux pas was starting to sink in. I realized that I made a bad situation far worse. The wasp that was in the front room was now in one of the more revered places in a woman’s abode – her bedroom. That’s where undergarments are. Ya know, undergarments. See, I thought it was good that there was a door between us and the wasp, but now the wasp was in the room with the undergarments. That was bad – very bad.
“…room.”
It didn’t take long.
“You go in there and kill that wasp! You don’t know where it is now. It could be anywhere!!! (I knew where she meant when she said ‘anywhere’. It could have crawled in and tried on the undergarments.) GO GET IT!”
I quickly ran the spray bottle under the hot water in the kitchen, got it to spray, and walked back to the bedroom door and opened it. I swear – the wasp waved at me. He and I had some non-verbal communication through the crack in the door, then I walked in.
I sent this message to the wasp on a “Wasp Only” channel so he would understand “This is my girlfriend’s bedroom, and I am defending her undergarments drawer from you!”
The wasp flew toward me, and I gave it a good spray. He looked at his thorax and it was shiny. “Cool, kinda like a car wax for my butt. I’m getting this human, now!”, the wasp said (in a wasp voice).
I found a magazine with a star that had no hope of ever reviving their career and sprayed the wasp again on the next pass. It was a fatal hit and as the wasp began to fall to the ground, I swatted it mightily (well, as good as I could muster) with a Daniel Baldwin US Weekly issue.
A moment of silence for the wasp with the shiny hiney.
He is no more and I married the scared, beautiful lady that was hiding in the bathroom. All was well, until one of his descendants find their way in our home.
