Farmer H Needs An Adverb Lesson: LOVINGLY, Not GRUDGINGLY.

As you may recall, I have been getting up at 4:50 a.m. as usual, to pack The Pony's lunch and ferry him off to Newmentia for his tutoring duties. Problem is, my body thinks it's on summer vacation. It prefers to stay up until 2:00, with an interlude of napping from 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Then it refuses to go back to sleep. What are ya gonna do? I can't kick my own body to the curb. We don't have a curb. Just a snarling overgrown poodle.

This morning, I had just settled down for a short summer's chair nap when I heard, "MOM! THERE'S A GIANT SPIDER DOWN HERE!"

"Well, I'm not coming down. You'll have to step on it."

"I already DID! Now it's laying here on the rug!" Let the record show that The Pony was talking about the huge braided oval rug that we got from the estate auction of my maternal grandma's house. The huge braided oval rug in which I once found a giant toenail that nearly severed a tendon in the bottom of my foot while pregnant with the #1 son, leading to its official Hillbilly family name of The Toenail Rug. Let the record also show that The Pony trots down to the basement each morning in his sleep shorts and an old science fair t-shirt, his tender hooves unencumbered by shoes.

"I can't help that. I'm not coming down. I'm tired. My legs will hurt too early from the stairs. Get a tissue and pick it up and flush it."

"It's too BIG!"

"HOW big? As big as a tennis ball?"

"If you count the legs! What if it runs off?"

"Then you need to smash it and make sure. You don't want it alive and running around, do you, when you don't have any idea where it is, but you know it's there somewhere in the room?"

"I don't have anything to smash it with. There aren't any shoes down here."

"You can come up and find one, or use something else."

WHAM!!!

"What was THAT?"

"Oh. You heard that?"

"Yes! What was it?"

"I threw the box my laptop came in on it. There are still some parts in there I don't use."

"Great. #1 always wants to save the boxes. Now it will be a mess."

"Not really. Somebody can wipe the spider guts off of it and it's still good."

"Get that cleaned up."

"In a bit."

I leaned back for about four winks of much-needed shut-eye. Farmer H emerged from the bedroom, the opposite of rarin' to go to the job that allows us to live this luxury life of heirloom toenail rugs and indoor wildlife.

"Your son stepped on a huge spider, and is afraid to pick it up." No response, except maybe a disgruntled grunt. "Aren't you going to do anything?" His footless ankles stumped their way toward the stairs. "Wait! Aren't you going to holler and ask him? He might have picked it up by now." On stumped the stumps. "What are you, stupid? You may not even have to go down there!" Stump. Step. Stump. Step. Stump. Step. Let the record show that 13 steps were stumped down to the basement level.

"Where is it?"

"Right there, under the laptop box."

"I don't see any spider."

"THERE! On the edge!"

"Hmpf." Step. Stump. Times 13. "See. I ain't stupid."

Sweet Gummi Mary! What, exactly, does Farmer H think his job is around here? I'm pretty sure "killing and disposing of bugs" is not even in fine print.

Poor Pony. "It was a wolf spider. It blended in perfect camouflage with the rug. I stepped in front of your chair, and hit it with my pinky toe on my left foot. I thought, 'That's not right. There's something there.' Then I saw it! The legs were kind of crinkled up. I knew it wasn't all the way dead. The only thing heavy enough to kill it was my laptop box. Even Dad had trouble seeing it on the rug."

Don't think this means The Pony will be shod in the basement now. He will just be jumpy.