2010 Reflections: Deep Reflections Following a Spider Squashing

This year, my sister Tracy and I lived in a crappy cottage during the tourist season. Our water, which reeked of sulfur, damaged our hair; mold grew on the bottom of our high heels and the lining of our backpacks; and our stove made pizzas that were burnt on the bottom and frozen on top. We reached a breaking point when one fall afternoon, a wolf spider – the tarantula of the Midwest – perched between our tiny rust-stained bathroom and us.

Tracy screamed and ran out of the cottage. I screamed, shut my door, and stood on my bed.

“Oh my God, Sally. Oh my God, what do we do?”

I called Wilson’s – the restaurant we both served at.

“We have a spider in our cottage and it’s huge and we need somebody to come here and kill it!”

Five minutes later our co-waitress Katie pulled up wearing her red Wilson’s t-shirt, a flyswatter in hand. Disturbingly, it took two cracks from a frying pan to kill the beast.

Door County has been an adventure – to say the least. Since my first season three years ago, I have experienced more than I ever expected, saved money to travel to such places as New Zealand and Europe, and met incredible and unique individuals, of all ages and backgrounds: artists, students, musicians, locals, tourists.

After interning at the Peninsula Pulse two years ago, (fleeing a Door County winter to New Zealand), working as a nanny, wandering as a backpacker, serving Door County’s tourists as a Wilson’s girl and Madison’s citizens as an under-qualified server at an Italian restaurant (how many waitresses ask their customers to spell their wine order?), the Pulse took me back and I am so grateful they did.

This year, more than any, I feel I have stepped over that hazy line into adulthood and discovered that sense of serenity for which I was always unconsciously searching.

I love going to a job where I am challenged and respected. And I love knowing that if ever a spider, or a muskrat, attacked – the folks of DC got my back.