My Hero

It's 1:48 AM and I'm waiting on a particularly long WinBUGS run, so I thought I'd tell a story about how Brad is my hero.  (I'm delirious, major work on Chapter 3 is due to the advisor tomorrow, perfect time for a blog post?)

I have a highly irrational fear of bugs.  In the BF 442 I was known for my fear of crickets...one night I heard a cricket in my room, but couldn't see it, so I slept on the living room couch.  Roomie Anna even got me a "cricket net" for a birthday present so that I could hunt them more diligently.

Anyway, the bugs are starting to really come out now that it's warming up, and I've heard that one effect of our mild winter was that not very many bugs got killed off, so this is bad news for Stephanie.

Our apartment complex provides washer/dryer hookups in all units but no washer/dryer (although this complex is so superior to my college apartment experiences, I do think this fact is dumb) and Brad and I decided to utilize the on-site laundry building rather than buy a washer/dryer for our apartment and not know what to do with it when we move.

I had four loads of laundry last night, so I trekked the basket out to the laundry building, flipped on the light, and immediately started getting creeped out.  People don't really care about keeping the laundry building door closed, so bugs like to make it their home.  I saw spring bugs on the wall and what looked like a daddy long-leg...I loaded up one washer, looked back at the wall and the daddy long-leg was gone.  I frantically searched the floor, thinking it was surely on its way to crawling up my leg, but I was safe for the time being.

When I came back later to switch the clothes to the dryers, major freak-out time.  Flipped on the light and this time a giant moth got all excited, and started flitting all over the room.  I did my best to run wet clothing from washer to dryer, four times, but several times the moth was in my face and I definitely jumped and screamed like I was legitimately being attacked.  I'm surprised no one in the nearby building came out to see what the fuss was about...maybe they were just laughing at me from their window.  At one point I also saw THE DADDY LONG-LEG FLYING AT ME, at which point I realized it was just a very, very large spring bug.  As soon as I managed the clothing I raced back to the apartment, came in panting, and told Brad "you HAVE to go get the laundry when it's ready.  I can't handle it.  The bugs." 

Brad of course has had experience with my phobias, and talked me through the whole "You are 500 times bigger than it, what is it going to do to you?" but I wasn't having it.  "It flies in my face!  And that's creepy!"

So he agreed to come with me to pick up the laundry when it was ready - not to get it for me, because "I should face my fears", but at least he came along.  He opened the laundry room door and turned on the light, and I did this awkward hunched-over run past the outside lamp...loaded all the laundry up as fast as possible, and all the while he had his eyes on the ceiling, swatting at any moths or other creepies who tried to come close to me.

Then I awkwardly hunched-over high-tailed it out of there. 

It's such a silly thing, but he was my knight in shining armor, battling away the creepies so that I wouldn't launch into a full-fledged panic attack due to a moth TOUCHING MY ARM.

I like my husband.

From now on, I'm doing my laundry in the daytime.