Attic cleaning

The folks from the local donation place are sending a truck through my neighborhood, so I decided I'd gather up some clothing for them. In my attic are green trash bags full of four different sizes of both men's and women's clothes, all really great quality, waiting for me to shrink back into them. Since that doesn't appear to be happening, I decided I can part with the smallest ones.

Now in our family, we are extremely afraid of spiders. Freaky afraid. "Call 911, there's a big boy on the wall" kind of afraid. It's not our fault...it's genetic. Warren's mom used to jump up into her chair and watch Johnny Carson for 30 min. with her smoke in one hand and the ash tray in the other, standing in that chair. She named the spiders in their house. The biggest one was "Gray Boy". He had bones and had fur....hey, it's the truth...this was Kansas, you know! She'd rather face a tornado than go into the cellar. Very smart woman, she was.

So cleaning my attic is a very slow procedure. "How does she do it at ALL", you may ask. Well, here's my method:

First, I stand in the doorway and scout out the whole place. Carefully. V e r y carefully. Then breathe. Then decide what item I want to check or pull out. Breathe. Take a couple steps inside and quickly look up to see if there are any snipers waiting in ambush on the ceiling. Run back out and breathe. Fix eyes on my target item. Make sure there's a clear exit path. Take a breath and go to it. Check for visible spiders. Breathe. Poke it with a ruler to startle any hiding spiders into scurrying away. Breathe. Grab a corner with finger and thumb & drag it down to the floor. Jump back. Breathe. If nothing scampers out, then I can drag it out and look at it. Carefully.

So far after 3 days, I've got my gift wrapping paper and two bags of clothes for the donation folks. And have used 3 cans of precautionary Raid.