This is the most disgusting creature I have ever seen in my life:No, not Gary Busey. Though he comes in a close second, I was referring to this disgusting creature:For awhile we thought it was dead because it didn't move for a few days. Ami and I have been checking it every morning as we come into school. Then like 2 days ago when we came in we noticed a leg had moved. It is, by far, the biggest spider I have ever seen.
Doesn't that word send a shiver down your spine? I have recently discovered that I have quite a strong visceral reaction to cockroaches. The word for "cockroach" in Japanese is "gokiburi." I think that word has a very disgusting, vile ring to it-- quite appropriate for the foul insect it represents.
Tuesday night I bought eggplant, green pepper, carrot, and ground beef to make a Chinese dish called, roughly translated, "fish-taste eggplant." I found a sauce packet to make the dish in my local grocery store (who'da thunk it?) and I was super-excited to try it out. Since I had veggies left over, Wednesday night I made a yummy concoction of eggplant, green pepper, garlic, and spaghetti sauce to pour over rice. After putting the soiled frying pan and utensils in the sink, I decided to let the dishes sit while I ate my food and watched a movie. Two hours later, the movie was finished, I was stuffed, and I was not looking forward to cleaning the grease and veggie pieces off of all the dishes in the sink. I walk into the kitchen, turn on the light, look in the sink, and scream. There is a big, brown, shiny cockroach sitting in the net used to put unwanted veggie pieces in. My fear quickly turned to anger-- I'm angry that there's cockroaches in my apartment and angry that I squealed like a junior high schooler. Fuming, I grabbed a paper towel and started cursing the cockroach out, psyching myself up to try to smash it. In the time it took me to get the courage up to kill it, it had started on its escape plan. "Screw this," I said out loud. "I'm getting a shoe." I ran to my entryway and grabbed the first shoe I could, then ran back to the kitchen where the cockroach had, by this time reached the front of the cabinets under the sink and was making his way to a small gap in the cabinet doors. "Oh no you don't!" I yelled, opened the door, and tried to smash him. The fast little sucker got away and quickly ran behind the cabinet through a tiny crevice between the sink unit and the wall. Cursing, I ran to my stash of lethal chemicals, grabbed a bottle of insecticide, and fumigated the crevice with as much bug spray as my eyes could handle.
Defeated, I turned back to the sink to start doing the dishes. I lifted up the frying pan to find ANOTHER cockroach. I squealed again, then sprayed the living daylights out of it with the can of spray that was still conveniently next to me. As my skin began to tingle from the chemicals, I grabbed a paper towel and, now unafraid to feel the bug's exoskeleton crush under my fingertips, vanquished the foul beast. The rest of the night I kept feeling phantom bugs crawling on my arms. But that may have been the chemical vapors that seeped into my skin.
Ami and I were walking to the post office the other day and we saw a praying mantis being devoured by a swarm of ants:The grossest part was the it was still alive and moving. The ants were carrying tiny pieces of it away on their backs. It was so gross and cool that I had to take a picture of it.
This morning as I was preparing for another day at school, I glanced into my water closet (that's right: I have a separate little room for the toilet. How quaint) and caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar brown spot on the wall. It was a massive spider. The diameter must have been close to the size of a golf ball. I stifled a gasp, then quickly grabbed some tissues off the back of the toilet tank (note: it's a good idea to keep tissues in this spot, just in case you run out of toilet paper. I know this from experience). I looked again at the spider, dropped the tissues, and grabbed a sandal from the entryway. I was going to rub out this spider's life as swiftly as possible.
Of course, since I'm a horrible aim, I missed the spider on the first try. And the second. And third. But on the fourth try, just before he disappeared behind the toilet, I squashed him against the wall, leaving slimy bits of leg on the bottom of the shoe.
As I started to breathe again, I realized I was tingling all over. I was seriously freaked out by this massive spider. But, after my heart rate returned to normal, and feeling like I had conquered a foe, I turned to walk away from the bathroom. Suddenly something at my feet caught my eye and I screamed.
It was a piece of string stuck to the bottom of my foot. I am such a wimp.
You know that urban myth that, during sleep, you will swallow somewhere between five and twenty spiders in your lifetime (the number changes with each person you talk to. I've heard 12, 6, 10, and 8 most commonly). Well, I think the chances of eating spiders while I sleep here in Japan increases quite a bit because of the culture. To whit:
a) the Japanese believe that killing spiders is bad luck, b) there are zillions of cracks and crevices in the tatami mats and sliding doors and closets where spiders could hide, c) my windows and doors are not sealed very well, so spiders have easy access from the outside, and d) I sleep on the floor.
So I figure in the two years I will live in Japan I'll eat roughly 3,000 spiders. I'm sure that number's pretty close to accurate. I just hope none of them are poisonous.
Name: Ruthie Home: Japan About Me: I want to know who God is and what his truth is. I love getting lost in beautiful music and cloudless star-filled skies, especially in the fall. I hate being bored. I like big cities. I want to travel the world. read more
Name: Ruthie