The Cockroach-Spider

Yesterday I was on a cleaning spree. I got out of work early and before I picked Ian up from daycare I planned to clean my car, vacuum and pick up around the house. After I got my car all sparkling clean I vacuumed the whole house. While vacuuming I had to move Ian's toys from their current place in the living room so I could clean up in that area. So I decided to put away a few of his toys so that when I brought them out again in a few weeks they would be fresh and new to him again. I picked the Busy Ball Popper to put away for a while.
I scooped up the toy under my arm and carted it and a few other things back to Ian's room. After hoisting the ball popper up on the shelf in Ian's closet I saw it...a spider that can only be described as a cockroach-spider. That thing looked like it had an armored shell! It was inside the clear tube of the ball popper with all the balls.

OMG! What do I do to kill this thing I thought after I finished screaming because I had just held the damn thing under my arm and carried it around the house. So I quickly and carefully took the toy and tossed it into the bathtub. I ran for the vacuum and uncoiled the cord at the speed of fear. Once I was ready to suck that cockroach-spider into oblivion I was tasked with how on earth do I get the thing out of the toy so that I can get him?

Then the light bulb went on! When this toy works it plays a lovely (read: loud) tune and shoots the balls out the top of the tube, where they often go flying in different directions. Perhaps the cockroach-spider would fly out too. As scary as a flying cockroach-spider was I had to give it a try. I reached down and flipped the on the switch and pushed the plunger to start the popping. It was half way through its little song, I was sweating, the vacuum was humming, and out pops the cockroach-spider. I moved quickly sucking him up then promptly moving to vacuum every corner of the bathroom just to make sure there was enough dirt in the machine to swirl him to little bits.

After the crisis was over the toy balls were all over the bathtub, and I was panting, holding the vacuum wand like a weapon. I calmed down and put away the vacuum after dumping the canister to get rid of the cockroach-spider for good. Then I washed all of the balls just in case they had some toxic cockroach-spider goo on them. Yuck! All of this just in time to rush off to pick up Ian from daycare.

What a day! Melinda 1, Cockroach-Spider 0