(This is a long one, sorry in advance x:!)
The other day I ended up working with a family friend. Out of nowhere he drops by our house and goes,
"HEY! You wanna make money?"
I'm easily sucked into these too-good-to-be-true situations. Like with the shamwow, heck YES I wanna be able to absorb 50 types of liquids and 3 different kinds of solids. Anyways, obviously I do, so I agree.
I've worked with him before, it's always been great. I get to see the insides of amazing mansions with top of the line air conditioning in the middle of summer. It's like being a robber, only with less shanking and jail...and jail shanking. Plus, he never really makes me do much. The most stressful situations involve me not knowing which screwdriver is which.
So my mother ends up coming with us, she and I are taking the van which he has packed with ridiculously heavy boxes. This should have set off some alarms, however, he was smart enough to pop in at god-awful-o'clock to ensure that my mind was thoroughly incapable of properly judging the situation.
We follow him for about 20 minutes when he decides he's running late and speeds off ahead of us. This would be fine, except our car is so packed with junk that it's barely putt-putting along...plus he never told us where the hell we were going. This should have been sign #2 that this was going to be the
best day ever.
We drive along aimlessly for a bit before we finally spot him. He was stopped in the middle of the road by an orange-vested construction worker of justice. The kind of guy who takes his job way too seriously, who is always joined by a guy who doesn't take his job seriously enough? So SeriousMan (he's part superhero by the way) calls his buddy on his little walkie talkie to get permission for us to pass through using all kinds of magical codewords like "vicinity" and "safe". This was sign #3 that this was going to be the
Best Day Ever. He lets us pass through only for our questions about what hold up was to be immediately answered.
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| This was taken on the way back, so they had already started to shave the rock down. |
A frigging
boulder had fallen in the
middle of the road. Fffantastic.
Slightly horrifying, but everything will be fine, right? I mean how often do boulders fall, let alone large ones. Plus it's not like giant boulders are really that common.
 |
| :| |
I stand corrected.
Finally after a century long, vomit-inducing, winding car ride, we arrive at this magnificent house... in the middle of nowhere. The second I opened that door the heat wave exploded into the nicely air conditioned van. It was like opening an oven door mixed with a really pissed off heat-genie who repeatedly smacked me upside the head with the reminder "IT'S FRIGGIN HOT."
Also, by the middle of nowhere, I mean.. the next town over is all the way at the bottom of a mountain ridge.
I'm talking, get away with murder distances. This was their nearest neighbor.
Yeah, that thing that looks like a rock waaaay in the back? Well.. that's actually a rock..but
behind that rock, that square thing? If you kinda squint..? That's their neighbor.
Our friend tells me to unload the truck while he and my mother talk to the home owner. I ask him where to put it, and he tells me to set them up around the house.. around.. the house? This means we're working in 9 billion and 3 degree weather? All day?
AND I get to lug boxes around to the very back of the house next to the canyon of death? Can you say
best day ever, sign #4?
At first I was all proud of my amazing lifting skills. These boxes were anywhere between 10-25 pounds depending on the size, and I was lifting them with ease, as well as carrying them long distances.
This should have been a dead give away that the heat had induced super-human adrenaline strength because my body
literally thought it was dying and needed the extra oomph to escape this wasteland. My first mistake was being proud of my string-bean arms. I cannot lift anything for the life of me. I ended up wasting my new, and very temporary, she-hunk powers by showing off.
The first few boxes were fine, however.. by the 26th well.. It went a little something like this.
My arms were sore, the heat had fried my brain, and I'm pretty sure my sweat was on fire...but I was finally finished..
Our family friend comes over to me, at this point in time I'm assuming to congratulate me on my amazing super-human skills. He pats me on the back and goes,
"So! You ready to start working?"
S.. st...
start?
Best Day Ever sign #5.
The rest of the day I end up lugging an seven foot ladder around the house with my five foot self, holding the light fixtures (which again, are between 10-25 pounds each depending on the light. 15-30 for the old light fixtures) till he takes them down, then carry them down the old fixture, bring up the new one, hold the new one in place for 5 minutes with my dead-noodle-arms, and then move to the next spot.
As an added bonus, I found this in their yard next to where we were setting up one of the lights;
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| I'm going to eat your entire family in their sleep c: |
He kept doing this thing with his legs where he would group them together to make a sort of X, so at first I had no idea he was a spider and just thought he was some sort of freakish flower.. only for him to spazz when the ladder almost touched him.
 |
| #6, |
It was like he was trying to trick us by losing legs.
":D I no spider, silly. I has 4 legs. Spider has 8! Come, let me hug you with my teeth."
So now I'm hot, tired, and absolutely horrified that Mr. Spider is gonna bite me with his acid teeth and turn my insides into outsides.
At this point I'm standing on the top step of the ladder, when I feel something.. tickling the back of my neck.
First thought that passes through my head; The nearest hospital is way past the outer edges of the nearest town.
Those little tiny specks of light off into the distance? That's the very edge of town. Now the hospital? Yeah, that's on the other edge.
Ffffantastic.
Luckily the thing on my neck just happened to be a bead of sweat. However, every time my own hair brushed against me or I sweat a bit, I would have a mini panic attack on the ladder and start babbling about death and doom. I also had a case of phantom spider symptom, i.e. nothing was even touching me yet for some reason I could feel them.
Mr. Spider didn't come alone though. He had a miniture friend who was equally scary regarldess of his small stature. Though what he lacked in size he made up for in hairiness.
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| Yeah, he's destroying a beetle. What of it? You wanna be next? |
Halfway through our 11 hour workday, we stopped by to get a quick snack in cliche diner with the waitress who calls anyone and everyone "sweetheart, sugar, honey, dumpling." I had hoped it would get my mind off of Mr. Spider and Spider McGee
Their menu did the trick.
The thing that concerns me the worst is.. how can a human being possibly consume something that salty in that kind of heat?
We went back to the house, and ended it off on a great note.
A Mr. Spider-y note.
Mr. Spider managed to catch a bee and ate it. He ate another one of human's nemeses. I can only assume he did this to absorb his power. That's probably why he was yellow, black, and white himself. I have discovered a bee-spider. A spee, a beider.
WHY WOULD YOU EVER WILLINGLY LIVE HERE?!
