Spiders From The South

I was watchin' TV, minding my own business. Suddenly, my wife burst into the living room. "South Boy is mowing his backyard!" she shouted. "Quick, grab the insect spray!"

I should explain.

"South Boy" is our name for the teenager one house south of us. He's the one who mows his yard in jeans no matter how hot it is. But he only mows the backyard when it has made the jump from soft green to subtropical savannah. That means that he's not just cutting grass... he's agitating wildlife.

There's only one proper response to impending invasion, and that's to go on the defensive quickly. The last two times (heck, the *only* two times) he's mowed, we've had spiders up close and personal the next day.

I quickly threw down a heavy perimeter of chemical warfare (thank you, Stark Industries!). The grass along our foundation was turning brown and an unhealthy mustard-colored fog was starting to rise as I went inside to continue preparations. I painted our baseboards in stinky death and then went off to our decontamination chamber, where I performed soapy karaoke for the next half hour.

After that, there wasn't much to do except wait. We put on hairnet helmets, gripped flyswatters in each hand, and crouched down behind the sofa to wait them out. After a while, my wife pointed out that spiders can crawl under the couch as well as over it.

We re-evaluated our scouting positions in great haste.

It was a long night, but we withstood the attack. No interlopers invaded our sanctum, and I'm pretty sure that I could hear tiny screams outside.

The battle is ours! The war... continues.