Writing 101 Day 17: Three O’clock Hero

Day 17: Today’s Prompt: We all have anxieties, worries, and fears. What are you scared of? Address one of your worst fears.
Today’s Twist: Write this post in a style distinct from your own.
Well, I don’t know iffen I kin do that. Wait here, while I go and slip into something more casual. Okay. Now let’s see how you like this writing outfit.

Three O’clock Hero

The little spider was in my house and I didn’t like it one bit. As long as they kept themselves outside I had no problem with them but once they trespassed into my living quarters, they were fair game for any human to kill, no questioned asked unless one got away. There’s only one problem with this picture and that’s the fact that I hate hate hate to kill the spiders myself. I don’t care if it’s three o’clock in the morning and I happened to get up and spy one in the bathtub. That’s what husbands are for and that’s just the way it is.

I’ve trained every single one of our kids, beginning from the young age of one and a half, to be spider killers, grandkids too, no exception. There’s one granddaughter that happens to thrive for spider killing. Our pets are also trained to kill spiders, cats, dogs, it don’t matter; everything living in this household, with the exception of myself, is an expertly trained spidergetter. They have no fear, these killers. None. Sometimes the kids, dog, and cats even go after yeller jackets, which I, of course, try to guard against. I try and limit them to hunting spiders but it don’t always work.

I participate in these spider hunts by screaming, squealing, jumping, and doing the full body shake—you know the one.

Now, I got something to say to one of the other bloggers here and that’s that she didn’t help me none that day she wrote about finding a little spider staring at her from on top of her bed pillow. Nope. Didn’t help none when I walked into my bedroom after reading that and spied a little black eight-legged creature of “my own” crawling up the side of the mattress when I went to make the bed and no one was here NO ONE was here, including that blogger or any of my homegrown spiderkillers, to get it. They’s all grown and moved or at work or in some other faraway place a blogging. Lotta good that does me.

“Ahhhaheeyeeeeeeee!” I screamed into empty air wondering later how come our neighbors didn’t call 911 and that didn’t help none either. (Ain’t it strange how screams look all written out? While we’re talking ’bout style, whatchor’s look like?)

I could’ve just stood there watching him crawl higher and higher and higher until he was right on top but NO! I couldn’t! I couldn’t even allow myself to think thadaway. I had to muster up all my gumption to tear my eyes off his progress long enough to grab a nearby shoe and knock him down on my very own and kill him myself and do it all while I was a hoppin’ and jumpin and doing the eebie jeebie shoulder shake so that none of his fangs have a chance of sinking into any part of me.

So, fellow blogger, you are so much braver than I, you fearless spiderkilling machine, you, you, you, why didn’t you write about something else? Iffen you had, maybe that spider of mine never would have showed himself upon my own mattress. Well, maybe. I’ve heard it said that there’s no thing such as coincidence. Well, sometimes maybe there just is and they’s wrong that say otherwise. Hmm.

Maybe iffen I hadn’ta walked in right then I never would have seen him and he would’ve been a waiting beneath my blankets to crawl and bite me all unawares come nighttime. You better believe I shook out all our bedcovers after that encounter.

Was he a stalking me cause I vacuumed his cousins earlier in the week? I know I am guilty of that. They creepycrawl around the high corners of our ceilings and hide behind the curtains in our windows and within the recessed light holes in the ceiling and I put the ol’ longated tubes onto the vacuum hose, flick that machine to “on” and show no mercy. Suck ‘em all right up. Some of them put up quite a fight of hanging onto their webs-n-walls too. I wonder iffen they don’t scream. Probly so. I imagine it’s so. Poor things. They oughta know better and just stay outside. We got the scary Hobo spiders here. They might not be Brown recluse but they be bad. Those lil’ black jumping spiders are terrible. They can jump over four feet away to getcha in their chomps. Outside they mostly run away from people but once they get into a house, they turn into fightin machines. Oh yes. Worse than flying monkeys, they are.

I always do get the back of neck shivers on those nights though, wondering iffen the ones I vacuumed are going to crawl out of the bag and seek revenge in the wee hours. See, I don’t empty those vacuum bags, oh nosiree. I let my brave hero of a husband do that. Eewe, just thinkin ‘bout all those dead spiders inside there.

Grimmace. Hair shake. Body shivers.

I shine my little Kindle light, the one that’s on my Kindle cover, around the bed, beneath my pillows, and under the blankets a bit before jumping in to join my husband for the night. He went to bed early after a hard day at work. I worry about my husband snoring there, with his mouth open and possible spiders in our bed. I give him a nudge and ask him to roll over onto his side. For some reason he doesn’t snore in that position and for some other reason, unlike when he’s awake, he tends to do what I ask him to in his sleep . . . moreso, anyways, . . . which is a good thing cause he don’t realize the dangers posed of spidercatching in his sleep and just how many times I mighta just saved his life . . . course, he’s one of those fearless types, big brawn of a man, maybe he just woudn’t care if he swallowed one . . . oh great gobsmackers; now I am lying in bed a thinkin bout that scary song my mom used to sing me when I was little, the one she sang her great granddaughters when she was up, which they, fearless as they are, they loved, the one about that old lady who swallowed a fly and then swallowed a spider that wiggled and jiggled inside her . . .

My husband rolls over onto his back and begins his snorting and snoring again, mouth hanging there all open and unsuspecting, all vulnerable n‘all. I can’t sleep now. Keep the Kindle on for the light, even though my eyeballs are a killin me. I elbow my spouse. He snorts and says, “Whaaa?”

“Turn over.”

It’s sort of a fight but he finally caves in and turns back onto his side. It’s the least I can do to protect him. Consider it my payback for him being so understanding during the wee hours when he hears me a screaming and comes a running to the rescue; that’s one of the very main reasons I went and married him . . . my three o’clock spiderkillin hero.