everything . . . and nothing

Last Friday, I drove through the McDonald's drive through and specified that my order was 'to go.' Then a butterfly flew in my window right into my face. As one of my friends told me -- the butterfly was the universe's way of telling me to keep my mouth shut. He just showed up a little late.

A few Sundays ago, while I was getting ready for church, Allie took it upon herself to slather the dog nose-to-tail with lotion. That would be the Eucerin Intensive Repair super thick, greasy lotion. Poor Dingo. He's such a good sport and he gets mad props for that. He also got a pretty intense bath later that day.

Our townhouse complex has been in the process of re-doing everyone's back porches for about the past month or so now. We got a letter in the mail about the maintenance guys coming today to change out the screens and put the final touches on the paint job, but that was like a week ago and I have way too much going on to remember stuff like that. So this morning while I was at work, I got a call from the office that I needed to come home and move all the stuff on my back porch.

My co-worker/friend Jaclyn so very sweetly offered to go with me. Now, if I were a fibber, this would be the part where I mentioned how easy it was to clean out my back porch, since I'm just so awesome and always keep every inch of my house uber organized and neat.

Yeah, no. I found randomness on my back porch that I totally didn't even remember was there, from my old close-contact jumping saddle to a very withered, dead Mother's Day plant that Allie made at daycare.

Oh yeah, and a few spiders.

So anyone who knows anything about me knows that I absolutely HATE spiders. I fear and detest them with every fiber of my squinty Asian being. And so does Jaclyn. Let's just say there was much girly screaming coming from the back porch as we moved bins and discovered webs upon webs of gross, creepy, disgusting spiders.

I tried to be brave, but finally just couldn't handle the extreme spider-age anymore. So I got the bright idea that maybe the painting guys waiting patiently out in my front yard could save the day.

"Hey, could you guys come help us real quick?"
The guys put out their cigarettes. "Yeah, sure. You got something heavy?"
"Um, well kind of, but not really. There's just this really big spider . . . "

They could've at least *tried* to hide their guffaws.

I hate spiders.