Some of you think that I, Captain Catastrophe, has but one talent.
Physical injury to my person.
But you would be sadly underestimating my incalculatable talent.
I can do property damage.
If you don’t believe me, you should see the painting job I did this
weekend on my front stairs. Oh, yeah. Property damage.
My mother was good enough to come out to the house to help me out. A
little pulling the weeds. A little varnishing. But mostly, she was there
to make sure I actually did something outside. I just don’t understand
why people want to putter around the house. Are they nuts or something?
If you want to do that, move to a different climate–this one just
doesn’t suit that need. That’s I love living here. At least half the
year nobody says, “You ought to get out of the house.” Heck, the local
TV stations tell you to not venture outside your home on the first snow
day of the year. Death at your doorway should you venture outside.
In fact, I’d kind of like to have my door welded shut. I would accept
food deliveries at one of the windows and just sit inside and play XBox
and surf the Internet. That would be paradise. Of course, I’d have to
sneak out of the window to go on trips and hit the roller coasters. And
there would be an ungodly funk with garbage piling up.
Well, let’s not weld the door shut yet. Still, I look forward to being a
shut-in.
So, my dad and I built some new steps to the front porch. Actually Dad
built it and I kept getting tools from the basement and holding stuff
while he banged around on it. And I got drinks. Oh, and I found a
Citronella candle because the mosquitoes love that bush up front. So you
can see, I was key to the construction.
Dad, playing with his new miter saw at home, had cut all the wood to the
right length and put primer coat on those pieces before installation.
Well, like any project, we were missing a few pieces when we got done.
Dad ran to the Home Depot, and put the last pieces in–but it was my job
to put the primer on them.
There’s the problem. I hate painting. My mental brother actually likes
painting. I’ll tell you why, too. He’s mental. There is something
seriously wrong with him. I’m shocked they aren’t medicating him into
oblivion. He’s gotta be nuts. Here’s the problem with painting: You get
dirty. I’m completely not kidding. I don’t care how careful you are. I
don’t care how skilled you are. You are going to get nasty somewhere
along the way. I can deal with clutter. I can deal with dust (mainly
because I hate vacuuming, too, but that’s another story). But this is
dirty, sticky, gritty–icky-poo!
So, I sit myself down next to the steps and I start to paint. Now, there
were some tight areas so you might believe I would use a trim brush. Uh,
no. The easier way, and thus my way, is to get a lot of paint on the
brush and blob higher up on the panel. Then, gravity takes over and you
have yourself a perfect mess. Good enough, says I, and move along.
Well, I was actually starting to enjoy this, much to my own dismay. The
paint smelled kind of good, it was a nice sunny day, and I had a
comfortable spot to sit and do this thing. I had no idea how much paint
was already all over my face and hair–but that’s part of why I was
still okay with it.
That’s when I had to get up and do the other side.
The “other side” was almost completely inaccessible. I had to sneak
behind a pine tree and stretch to kind of paint, sort of, the slats
there. Meanwhile debris is falling in the paint, no air is moving and
then, there was the thing that scared me.
There it was. Big as life and twice as scary.
A spider.
Not just any spider. This was that super spider.
See, I’ve been battling this spider for some time now. I figure he was
in on the whole squirrel/bird thing going on in the backyard. This
spider casts a web every night across the front porch steps. He goes
from one guard rail to the other. Each day when I’m getting the mail, I
grab a piece of junk mail and I rip the web down. This thing just builds
it again. He’s a killer. One time I had to knock a toddler out of there
he was saving for a little treat. I had to knock the toddler out of
there. He had my XBox magazine. Little brat. Should have left him to the
spider.
So this giant spider is looking at me with them eight little eyes of
his. He is coiling up his massive one half inch body and I know what he
is thinking: “I’m going to jump on you and suck out all your blood.”
Spiders: philosophers they’re not.
Now, I’m just paralyzed. He’s like doing little acrobatic tricks from
his webbing and all I can think is this thing is going to pounce me and
terrorize me like John Agar. He’ll suck my blood over hours and it’ll be
the longest death scene since Paul Reubens got it in “Buffy the Vampire
Slayer.” (Note all the film references. You can tell I’m scared. I
always fall back on film references when I’m scared. Comfort food,
really.)
I did then, what any self respecting guy would do, in similar
circumstances.
I got my mom.
I didn’t tell her about the spider–I just told her about how it was
impossible to paint these stairs and she kind of agreed and let me out
of it.
And this is why I love my mom.
By the way, after the rain, I ran out there to see if the primer had
washed away. No it didn’t.
And neither did the paint near my left ear. It’ll come out eventually. I
hope.
Captain Catastrophe