Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Spider-rific!

As much as I've tried to find my inner Buddhist when it comes to the invading army of spiders flanked on my outside windows, I must admit to a giddy sense of satisfaction when I saw the notice posted in the building elevator: WINDOW CLEANING THIS WEEK. It seemed that my live-and-let-creepy-crawly-spiders-live attitude was paying me back in kindness. The window cleaners would slowly descend from the roof, one foot at a time, and they would kick through the webs without ever laying eyes on the detailed and delicate work of the Mosler Loft Arachnids. Spiders killed without a moment of murderous intent. (I'm pretty sure that feeling relief at the accidental destruction of another living being is totally against the good Buddha, but I don't claim to be a Buddhist, I'm just trying to minimize my good Catholic guilt.) I pulled my blinds and listened to the squeak-squeak-thumping of the window cleaners lowering down my building, swinging their ropes from side to side, covering as much width as possible to minimize the number of descents they'd have to make to hit all of that glass--there's a lot of glass on the 12 levels of this building. Squeak-squeak-thump, I imagined all of those webs being wiped away, no longer sitting between me and my view. Sorry, Spidey, but I didn't order them cleaners to come wash you away, I'm just minding my own business and wishing you well in whatever place you go to from here. Good luck, and yes, good riddance.

Turns out, spiders are resilient. And they work very quickly. By the time the sun was setting, two new webs were covering one of the recently squeegeed windows. Son of a...

Alas, it's only the outside of the windows that get cleaned by the brave men on ropes, I'm responsible for cleaning the interiors, which means we're looking out at this fabulous view through dusty, finger-smeared glass. Plus a new batch of spider webs.

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