17 Apr 2014

THE VACUUM CLEANER AND A SPIDER

When I was 23 in the 60th, had a good job and even a car, I decided to rent an appartment and move out from my parents. I was never allowed to invite friends, the cat I had got from a friend for my birthday was just tolerated,  and as no charming prince was in view I wanted to live on my own. I found a very nice little one, with two rooms, a bathroom and a kitchen and as it was on the ground floor I even had a little garden for my cat to go out through the window. When I wanted to sign the contract I needed my father's signature as I was not 25 years old, which made me very angry. But that was the law, to get married or rent a flat as a female you needed Daddy's signature !! (What a progress has been made ever since !).

I loved my little appartment, I had bought second hand furniture and it looked real cozy and nice. Unfortunately I have no picture of this time.

One night I got up to go to the bathroom and when I switched on the light I saw a huge fat spider sitting in the sink ! My heart stopped beating, I was like paralyzed, then I got my spirits back ran to the kitchen picked up my vacuum cleaner and pointed the tube into the sink to suck up the spider. Apparently it had worked because when I opened my eyes again the spider was gone.

I left the vaccuum cleaner turning for an hour or so, because I was so afraid that it would come out of the tube again. Then I switched it off and carried it to the basement into my little cellar, closed the door and went to bed again.

The next morning when I left for work, I met my neighbor an old woman (she was probably younger then I today) who always spyed on me and watched each movement in my apartment. She looked at me murderously and asked me with an angry voice to please not use my vacuum cleaner in the middle of the night, I should clean my flat during the day as normal people do !

Then she left, leaving me standing there, with  my mouth open to explain why I had used the vaccuum cleaner in the night. I finally decided to go first to work and pick up my vaccuum cleaner from the basement later, in case the spider was still living in it.





Jenny Matlock
more participants at Jenny Matlock's Alphabet Thursday


11 comments:

  1. I often have to vacuum up spiders in the middle of the night. My trick is to the vacuum the whole house so the spider is trapped in dust and cat hairs. If I had had A cellar like you I might have thrown the cleaner into it.
    I once had to ask my husband to sign for me to join a library because I wasn't yet 21. I am still annoyed about it decades later.

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  2. that's funny! You probably would have woken her up, if you just ran the vacumn for a brief time. It's hard to kill a spider, they are such good creatures... {:-D

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  3. I don't mind spiders. They eat the flies! Mind you, with cats you don't need a vacuum cleaner. Wuppie used to love catching and eating spiders!

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  4. Fun post for V ~ isn't it great how we laugh at our self and see the nonsense in the world and just move on ~ Happy Week to you ~ xoxo

    artmusedog and carol (A Creative Harbor)

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  5. I bet that old lady thought she was going to catch you doing something worse than vacuuming in the middle of the night. She was probably disappointed that you didn't give her something more exciting to complain about in order to spice up her dull life ! Funny story...I loved it.

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  6. yes spiders ! We had them in abundance in Indonesia.
    I believe there is a Protestant church in Belgium. I once attended a service in the Église Walonne.
    Wikipedia:
    A Walloon church (French: Église Wallonne; Dutch: Waalse kerk) describes any Calvinist church in the Netherlands and its former colonies whose members originally came from the Southern Netherlands and France and whose native language is French. Members of these churches belong to the Walloon Reformed Church (French: Réformé wallon; Dutch: Waals Hervormd or, prior to 1815, Waals Gereformeerd), a demonination of the long-distinguished Dutch-speaking Dutch Reformed Church

    I had to look it up of course!.

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  7. That's so funny. Glad you weren't eaten by the spider.

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  8. Can't believe your dad had to sign for you. That's crazy!

    As for the spider, sounds like you took care of things rather handily!

    ;)

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  9. Can I let you into a secret - I still do this but luckily we have a ducted vacuum so all spiders are collected outside the house. The only problem is that I don't have the guts to empty the cylinder - they've probably had babies!!!!
    Great V post
    Wren x

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