It could be worse

When a spider in the shower is the least of my problems. Also, fudge that is like crack and a Coastal Grandma must-have.

I arrived in Maine on a Monday afternoon and decided the next morning that I’d wash my hair and blow it dry for a photo shoot I had planned for later that day to update my headshots.

The Airbnb that I rented was perfectly situated for my five-day getaway along the Kennebec River surrounded by late-summer foliage but it was by no means luxurious. The studio cottage was pretty simple with a bare-bones kitchen that had a small refrigerator that was just big enough to hold all my plastic cups of yogurt and gallon of half and half and one of those Breville toaster ovens that could heat up my Whole Foods pizza or Trader Joe’s croissants but you are not making Thanksgiving dinner there. But since the air fryer is my preferred method for cooking anything nowadays, this suited me just fine.

When I was starting to wind down on that first night and get ready for bed, I noticed a small spider nestled at the top of the bathroom wall over the tub in the crease where it met the ceiling and what I would categorize as a small daddy long legs about a foot away. I eyed the two of them every time I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth or pee one more time before bed, wondering what to do about them and also, to make sure I had eyes on them. Like, keep your friends close and your enemies even closer.

I was tired after my day of driving north from Boston in an absolute deluge, my tiny clown car hurtling along 95 next to tractor trailers giving off a spray that made it impossible to see the road ahead for brief moments. I stopped in Portland to eat a lobster roll I had been thinking about since I was in Maine the summer before and that coincidentally had just been dubbed one of Food & Wine’s best lobster rolls in the country. Initially, I was going to find the food truck where we’d had the big piles of lobster meat on perfectly toasted buns with melted butter poured from a metal pitcher on top in the parking lot of a quintessential Maine lighthouse. My two girlfriends and I sat at a picnic table overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and the rocky Maine coast and talked about all the things good friends talk about when they get the chance to spend a few days together. We ate our lobster rolls and picked at the pile of salty potato chips and I washed it down with a cold bottle of root beer.

Even though the internet said that the lighthouse location was open rain or shine, the thought of trying to eat that massive lobster roll while sitting in my little go-cart that was packed to the gills with every piece of clothing I owned plus my pillows seemed really unappetizing. So instead I headed to Bite Into Maine’s brick-and-mortar location in downtown Portland and sat at a booth and bit into my sandwich, which brought back all the memories of the lighthouse and my girlfriends from the summer before. Thus sustained, I headed to the nearby Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s with no shopping list and just threw a bunch of things into my cart and then headed to my final destination.

Check-in wasn’t until 4 p.m. so I drove around for a little bit and then unlocked the door at 4:01 p.m., unloaded all the bags, and assessed my new home for the next five days. When I walked through the front door I was hit with a moldy-musty smell and I think that informed my initial impressions. That was disappointing as was the proximity of my Airbnb neighbors in the “big house” nearby. Although the pictures on the website fairly represented what awaited, I somehow felt duped.

So when I saw the critters hanging out on the ceiling in the shower, I was like, “Seriously?” After a few back-and-forths to the bathroom, I grabbed a handful of toilet paper, stood on the side of the tub, and murdered both of the bugs. I flushed the carcasses down the toilet and then flushed again in case one rose from the dead and wanted to bite my hiney in the middle of the night.

The coast was clear the following morning as I prepared to shower after a morning of working on my book. I shaved my armpits using the big bottle of liquid soap that the Airbnb host provided and used my fancy little Olaplex hair products. As I was rinsing the conditioner out of my hair, I thought about how nice the minty orange liquid soap smelled and that I would pick up a bottle the next time I went to Wegman’s when I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw a GIANT spider splayed across the shower curtain. Without missing a beat, I yanked the curtain open and stepped out onto the towel I had draped across the floor, sopping wet and laughing like a maniac. “Holy shit, that thing is big,” I said out loud as I grabbed another towel to dry off and get the fuck out of the bathroom.

I put on clothes and tried to be brave and assess my enemy’s whereabouts, hitting the striped curtain with a rolled-up Costco magazine I’d brought along as extra reading material. But nothing fell into the tub and when I used the top of the magazine to push the curtain open this way and that, I could not see the spider, which in a way was worse. For the rest of my stay, every time I entered the bathroom, I did a thorough spider check. I examined the ceiling and the knotty pine paneling covering the walls but could find nothing. I shook hand towels out before wiping toothpaste off my mouth and especially monitored the toilet for any sign of life. I definitely did not want that thing to bite my hiney.

When I told this story to a good friend and added that I never showered for the rest of the trip, she replied, “Well, that’s perfect for you,” and it was. I like to joke that I was a cat in another life because I hate the thought of getting wet. Once I’m wet it’s fine but the thought of it? No thanks.

I did have to quickly do a body shower on Wednesday after a day of walking around in the sun left me sticky and in need of a rinse. I did a top-to-bottom search of the bathroom and finding nothing, pushed the shower curtain open all the way to the side and hopped in the shower for a quick rinse as water sprayed all over the bathroom.

The night before I had planned to leave, and after the initial high-alert threat of danger had passed, I walked into the bathroom to pee and looked down at the floor next to the toilet and there it was. The spider I had been freaking out about all week was just right there on the floor and my initial reaction was, “That does not seem nearly as big as it did when we took a shower together.”

Without thinking, I slipped one of the Kirkland slides that had been my slippers all week off my left foot and quickly brought it down toward the spider and then watched it scurry behind the toilet. “Fuck, it’s fast,” I thought. I watched it run behind the trash can next to the toilet, which I moved out of the way and then brought the shoe down again and seemed to maim the bug as it ran into the corner for cover. That’s when I took the slide, jammed it into the corner, and pushed really hard, squishing the thing flat so that it’s long black legs splayed out on the floor as they did on the shower curtain liner a few days before. I went back a little later and hit it again with the shoe, just to make sure it was a goner, and then put the wastebasket back on top of it and thought about how I would dispose of the remains and in the end — don’t hate me — I left it for the housekeeper to deal with when I was gone. I promise, I left the entire place immaculate and created a bathroom tableau suggesting that, unbeknownst to me, the spider had been involved in an accident.

As with all the surprising and sometimes not great things that happen in my life, I thought on my drive home about what great content that spider had provided. I told the story of doing battle with the bug to my two daughters and how initially, I had thought that those two bugs who’d initially greeted me were the worst things that could have happened until I found that bigger spider in the shower and it menaced me all week.

I made that long drive home on Sunday from mid-coast Maine to the Jersey Shore through yet even more rain but when I got home I really wanted to get all my bags unpacked and everything put away before the start of the work week, which included doing about a thousand pounds of laundry. I put all my dirty clothes and blankets in a basket and carried it down to the machines in my spooky basement and started up a load. As I headed back up the stairs, a mouse ran down a few steps right in front of me and disappeared behind a plastic tub I’d kept beach towels in all summer on the landing.

“Is this a joke?” I thought after I finished screaming and hopping up and down in front of my washer and dryer.

Eventually, I mustered the courage to push the box away from the wall and saw that there was no mouse lurking behind it. I deduced it must have slipped through a crack in the nearby door that led out to the side of the house. An exterminator came the next day and confirmed my initial analysis and set up a glue trap for it to get stuck to the next time the mouse paid a visit. Every time I opened the basement door to grab the dog leash or my jacket off hooks I had put up on the wall, I felt the terror of being confronted with a mouse squirming on a glue pad. Finally, I threw the thing away and ordered some battery-operated contraption on Amazon that came with a disposable box that acts like a tiny coffin I could just throw in the trash.

This is a very long way of telling you about the lesson I learned from that spider in Maine — it could be worse. You think a daddy long legs on your ceiling is bad? Try a spider in the shower. Could there be anything worse? Sure, how about a mouse running around your house? And so on.

So everyone, I feel pretty calm about the mouse. Or, a whole lot less crazy than when I had one running around my kitchen here last year. If that’s the worst thing the universe is going to toss my way right now, I’ll take it.

When bad things happen, I really do know that things could be a whole lot worse. I have my health and kids who love me and this beautiful life filled with lobster rolls, good friends and lighthouses. And if nothing else, it’s all just great content.

 

sunday shares: read + watch + cook + buy

Same old. Same old. When it comes to the reading, watching and listening parts of this section, not much has changed this week. I continue to listen to David Copperfield (only 17 hours left!), kind of slogging through The Covenant of Water (50% complete!) and Olivia Rodrigo’s new album Guts plays on repeat in my car. The 20yo is kind of everywhere right now as I heard interviews with her on NPR, The New Yorker Radio Hour and btw, when I searched her name on The New Yorker website, about five articles and reviews came up. There’s something about her more angry songs I really love.

Be prepared to throw the box away to keep from eating the whole thing.

The people running Trader Joe’s should be arrested. Have you tried TJoe’s new seasonal goodie, the maple fudge? It is absolute crack-in-a-box. I blame my sister for telling me about it.

Giving Coastal Grandma. I don’t know who needs to know about another thing I got from Old Navy, but I wore this sweatshirt over a blue oxford button-down and with grey denim pants and it got great reviews from all the 20- and 30-somethings I word with. I sized up to make it good a slouchy.