Unhealthy Fears

I think the last time I posted with any enthusiasm on this blog was when I was dealing with a mouse issue about a year ago. Well guess what, boys and girls? Those damn mice are back and I'm completely squicked out.

As I've detailed on this blog before, I have an unhealthy fear of spiders and now I'm developing one with mice. And fortunately for me, we don't have any snakes in my area or near my house, or I'd have an unhealthy fear of them too. When I was a child, up until the age of 6, we lived in a century old farm house. The farm land surrounding the house was being developed by suburban sprawl. As a result, the snakes who resided in the area, were forced to move to new locales. Enter our house. Every spring, when the rains were frequent, my mother would start to panic. Like my unhealthy fear of spiders, my mom has an unhealthy fear of snakes. When a storm was approaching, she'd start smoking even more than usual, which was an incredible feat. If should could smoke three at time, she would have. Nerves forced her to keep busy with anything, mainly cigs, because she knew what was about to transpire.

My parents weren't exactly poor, but they chose to live in this old house so they could save enough money to build their dream home. And they eventually did, we moved into a brand spankin' new house when I was six. But before that, my mom had to endure the wrath of the black snakes every spring and summer while residing in the house at 415 E. Main St. See, when it rained, the snakes needed somewhere to find shelter. They would start slithering out of the fields, across our lawn and down in between the foundation of our house and the ground. Yes, snakes as in plural, as in many. I would sit at the window and watch them come. Dozens. It was like a horror film. And my mother, sometimes, would turn white as a ghost and pass out from fear. I'd have to drag her to the living room where I was instructed to lift her feet up on the couch until she came to. And when she did, she'd instruct my brother to "get the hoe." Now, my brother was probably 9 or 10 at the time and his job was to go outside in the rain and either chop the snakes' heads off or use the hoe to move them to other locations.

I'm not shitting you. This was a pretty regular occurrence. Today, my brother also is severely squicked out over snakes. Can you blame him? But back to my story. See, the snakes would find their way down into the foundation, and INTO THE WALLS OF OUR HOUSE. This old farmhouse had a dirt basement. When my mom would lock herself out of the house, she'd open one of the basement windows and drop me through it because I was the only one who could fit. I'd then have to stumble through the dark (trying not to think about snakes) to the steps where I'd run up as fast as I could to unlock the door. Then it would take me about 3 hours to recover from the horror of the basement. I'm sure my brother had to take a day or two to recover from the snake slaughter.

My mom used to tell me stories of how she would lay in bed and listen to the snakes slither through the walls. This must have drove her crazy. Some of the faint memories I have of my mom before I turned 7 make sense now. Fear does crazy things to you.

And now, the mice are back in our present day ghetto house. Even with the cats. So finally we called an exterminator. He came out and inspected our house. Mice have been discovered in our attic and basement. Oh my God, we're filthy! So lately, I haven't been able to sleep without the aid of some sort of sleep medication. I lay there thinking about the mice on the other side of the wall. What if they find their way into my room? What if they're crawling on my son? Oh I can't even imagine the horrors! I wake up nightly with visions of them crawling on my ceiling above my bed.

I come by this honestly. My poor mother. How she overcame that is beyond me. My poor brother. He had to hack away at large black snakes at the young age of 9. Good gravy. And me? I had to be squeezed through a small window, dropped 4-5 feet into a dank, smelly basement, riddled with cobwebs and God knows what else. My unhealthy fears of pests, however ridiculous, somehow seem justified.