June 15, 2020

"¿Cómo se dice 'spider' en español?"

My morning was one that could have been straight out of a sitcom.

I was up late last night because I'd forgotten that my duvet and comforter were in the washer and needed to be dried--and because they're bulky, they take a while to dry. Jerry just went to bed without them (he usually kicks them off anyways) but I waited and put the comforter back in the duvet at 2:00 in the morning.

Thankfully, today was the first day I was going to be able to sleep later than 6:00 or so in a long time! I was looking forward to it.

Imagine my surprise, then, when Eli woke me up at 7:40 to tell me that a truck was here and someone was knocking on the door. I'd actually been in a pretty deep sleep, because I was disoriented for a minute. Then it hit me--we had people coming to spray the outside of our house for spiders this year!

Here's why:


Yes, that spider was on the ceiling ABOVE MY BED a few days ago. I've had it! No more of this.

I jumped out of bed and hastily grabbed a robe because I was only wearing a t-shirt and underwear. Embarrassingly, I opened the door and and a Hispanic man greeted me. I said, "You're here to spray for spiders, right?" and he said, "Sí, sí. We set up?" and gestured to our yard.

I said sure, that I would get dressed and be out in a minute. He asked, "Move car garage?" gesturing toward my car (his English was very broken, but I could understand).

Because our garage is a mess of drywall and stuff right now, I said I would have to move the car to my neighbors' house (Corey and Tanya, who I knew wouldn't mind if I parked there). So, I went inside and threw some clothes on, then I went out to move the car.

When I parked at Corey's, he came outside and said that he was expecting some trucks this morning to work on his house (they are getting new siding, new windows, and a new roof). But he showed me a spot where I could park and not be in the way.

When I got home, I was thinking, "Wow, this is serious stuff!" because the two Hispanic men were covering the windows of my house with plywood  (just leaning it against the house, not nailing it in or anything). They unloaded a lot of equipment from their truck into the front yard. I'd never had our house sprayed before, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I saw a large tank with a hose coming off of it, so it looked legit.

However, I was confused because my mom had highly recommended a man named Tim to do the spider spray. He sprays her house every year and she's thrilled with the very thorough job he does. "Tim" isn't a very Hispanic-sounding name, but you never know.

I asked the men again if they were there to spray for spiders, and then one of them said "Sí, un momento. I call boss." So he called his boss, who was named José. At that point, I thought maybe Tim contracts out the work or something, so I spoke with José on the phone who said he was going to be there in one minute.

Meanwhile, I called my mom to ask if all this equipment was normal. I found it odd that they were covering the windows. Also, when my mom made the appointment (she called to make an appointment for them to do our house and her house back-to-back) she specifically requested that Tim himself would do the spraying.

My mom called Tim's company, and then called me back to let me know that they told her they had NOT sent a truck here.

I went back outside and there were ladders against the roof, tarps, lots of equipment in the yard, and I definitely thought it was overkill for spiders--no pun intended. José was pulling up in his truck, and when he got out, I asked him if he was there to spray for spiders. He said, "No, roofing!"

I nearly died. He showed me his work order, which showed COREY'S house number and not ours!

If José hadn't shown up when he did, his workers would have started pulling shingles off of our roof, hahaha. I'm so glad that I was home to answer the door, and that I had to move my car (otherwise I wouldn't have learned that Corey was having trucks go to his house today as well).

José apologized and said, "You almost got new roof for free!"

I thought the whole story was hilarious, and I felt bad that the workers then had to move all of their stuff to Corey's.

Inside the house, Eli was cracking up about the whole thing. Noah said he wishes he knew Spanish, and I said the same thing. I had been flying through the Spanish Duolingo course a few months ago, but when I discovered the Best Fiends game to play on my phone, I stopped Duolingo, unfortunately.

Regardless, I hadn't quite gotten to the courses on spider extermination or roofing yet, though! ;)

3 comments:

  1. Katie pardon my language and I don't mean to scare you, but I'm almost positive that creepy thing on you ceiling's a fuckin Brown Recluse. I hope it's not. They have poison venom. In our neck of the woods, it's Wolf spiders. Huge, but harmless. We use sticky traps. They work like magic! But you have to keep them away from kids and pets. Please google that and see what you think about the spider.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think she lives too far north for it to be a brown recluse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_recluse_spider#Distribution

      Delete
  2. Oh my gosh, that spider picture!! If that had been on our ceiling above our bed, my husband would have a for sale sign in our front yard before the end of the day!

    ReplyDelete

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