Unable to sleep, I got up at 2 a.m. to edit my letter to Senator Bramble. There was a huge spider crawling on my wall! Okay, when I say "huge" I mean a body length of about 1 inch. But it was totally freaky. I had to climb on my desk to kill it. I didn't want to be able to feel the crunch, so I tore a piece of cardboard from a box from my recent move. A shoe would have served the purpose, but then I would have had spider guts on one of my shoes. Sadly, the cardboard was not as effective as I had hoped, and I could still feel the spider's insides squish out of it. They looked like gray snot.
25 comments:
It's a good thing you're there in Provo where the spiders are small--you would never be able to handle the ones in Brazil...So, I take a whole day and a half off to have a baby, and you end up in the media? We'll have to talk soon. Being able to read most of the story at once, I think you handled it all quite well. Love you! And don't let grouchy men or big scary spiders intimidate you--you have already shown how well you can handle all of them.
I couldn't help but think about Sen. CB (watching over you???) while reading your "spider" story. (Just kidding)!
Hey Pizza Girl -- It's time to put your story on TV. Please give me a call.
Brent
ABC 4 News
(801) 975-4416
brent@abc4.com
Read your stories about Bramble (you're linked from the Deseret News now). As far as I'm concerned, you did nothing wrong, and he owes you and your employer a huge apology. You sound like a nice person, and I hope your life returns to normalcy soon. Don't be completely invisible -- continue being who you are to those you love.
So I saw your story on KSL, ABC 4...for someone that wants to be "invisible", TV seems like an odd place to be "invisible". I am sure though you were "forced" to speak to them.
I am not necessarily a fan of Mr. Bramble, but I have noticed an inconsistency in your account. You state you thought that only "family and friends" read your blog. So, why omit the Senator's name? If no one else read this, who would know? You stated his title and surely you realized there is only one Majority Leader in the Senate. I think you knew all along that more people then just "friends and family" read this blog. I wonder how long before ads appear on the blog?
Here is what I think, the Senator did act like a fool. And he made a very poor decision. But, it appears you saw a chance for 15 minutes of fame and you jumped on it. Well, you got it. You seem to be enjoying it (on TV you looked pretty happy), that seems at odds with what you write on this blog, though. Weird.
Ultimately, your employer Nicolitalia Restaurant will pay the price for this silly mistake. For me at least. I do not wish to patronize a place where if I make a mistake (and that is what the Senator did), the employees will post it all over the internet.
Again, I do not think the Senator is correct in his behavior, but I find your TV appearances inconsistent with what you say on your blog...and frankly not good behavior, either. What use is going on TV after posting the blog entry? Other then to embarrass the Senator (which you have probably succeeded in doing). You can tell the TV stations no, the blog says it all, right? This makes me think your apology letter/post to the Senator is hollow...so how is this action any less rude then his? At first you did have a higher moral ground, but you have now cashed that in for 15 minutes of fame at his expense...I hope is was good. You sure showed him...Congratulations. What is the saying about 2 wrongs?
Bramble suffers (or revels in) what I call "the attitude of entitlement." It is quite prevalent in Utah.
I see it everyday. Don't let the elitist pigs get your down kiddo. You did the right thing and you handled it very well. Bramble will push around whoever he can and belittle people in the press constantly and has for years.
I hope he enjoys a very small taste of his own medicine. Perhaps it will make that blowhard pause and think about how it makes others feel when he goes to the press and ridicules those of us in different fields (like school union leadership) who have been unfairly attacked by him and his cronies for years.
Nick is a class act and I am going to contribute even MORE of my salary to his cause (buying his delicious pizzas every chance I get). I only wish Nick would have told Bramble to screw off. That would have been awesome. He's the bigger man though and is way too nice to do such a thing.
"huh?" is a big fat jerk.
I had never heard of Nicolitalia pizza before, but I'll make a point of eating there now.
I think you're awesome.
I wonder if I can up my once a week ordering to three or four times a week. Oh, and put me down for six more cannoli.
How I love a coward that won't even sign a real profile to a comment; shows you how much value you should attach to such nonsense.
For years I couldn't shower with my eyes closed because of a scene in Arachnophobia the movie where a girl is having a shower and the spiders descend--SICK.
To "huh?":
I did not write this blog to get attention. Yes, I knew there was a possibility that people other than my friends and family would read it, but I thought it was a small possibility. I knew that anyone who found the post would know exactly who the senator was. I left out his name naively hoping that fewer people would stumble across the blog during searches (or whatever other methods people use--I still have no idea how random people found this).
When I wrote a couple days ago that I wanted to be left alone, I meant it, but I have had a change of heart.
In his essay "Self Reliance," Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.-- `Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.'--Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood."
When I first read "Self Reliance" during my junior year of high school, I thought Emerson was an idiot, but now that I have a few more years of life experience, I see that he was right. Someone who does not change her mind as she acquires new information and experience is foolish, indeed. In the past few days, I have acquired information and experience at an alarming rate and am, therefore, justified in changing my thoughts about the attention I am receiving.
Furthermore, my desire to be invisible is a maladaptive coping skill I have developed in response to a severe anxiety disorder that I have struggled with since the age of 5 (or thereabouts). It is called avoidance, the hallmark of anxiety. My current psychotherapy focuses on overcoming avoidance. This week has given me many opportunities to face my fears (like speaking in public) rather than run from them.
If you would like to criticize me further, feel free. It gives me the chance to practice my assertiveness, another skill I am working on.
Touché!
That was a brilliant response to yet another version of Sen B.
You go girl--
My brother tells the story of two men vying for the same really great high paying job and they were equal on paper and in the interviews and the man in charge of making the final decision was stumped. He then interviewed the doorman, the driver from the airport and the secretaries who had dealt with them both and there emerged two very different applicants. One had been kind to all of them and the other had acted like Sen B.
It may take a while, but someday there will be a comeuppance for people who think nothing of being rude to the "little guys."
I think we'll be having so pizza for dinner tonight.
Thank you for printing that quote it was perfect.
Hey Azucar, fancy meeting YOU here!
1. Spiders are gross. Especially when they are turned into snot.
2. I very much enjoy your writing style, and the way you told the pizza story. Your responses since then have also been well thought out and articulate. Please don't let the negative comments get you down.
I would have written this story in exactly the same way, since no one reads my blog either (I guess we no longer have this in common). I would have meant the title to be funny, since it was so obvious who it was. In addition to being a good joke, your foresight in not putting Senator Bramble's name in in order to avoid searches was a wise one. Sorry it didn't work out this time. I have a friend who made a comment about the Senator on his blog, and within about fifteen minutes, Bramble had commented with a rebuttal. You can draw your own conclusions as to how that happened.
3. Your story adds a little exclamation point to all the unpleasant personal experiences I've accumulated with the Majority Leader of the Utah State Senate over several years (and I'm not just saying that in a desperate attempt to get people to read my obscure little blog--I never blog about politics). I know you didn't mean to make a political statement, but now that it's turned into a media circus, I hope people will draw intelligent conclusions from your encounter and use it wisely when they vote in November.
4. I bet this will generate some business for your employers. I know I plan to get pizza next time I make it down to that part of the county.
Keep your chin up!
"pinetree"...So I am a big fat jerk because I choose not trip over myself saying this young lady is so brave? Or is it because I did not have a great second hand story about how I saw Bramble from afar at a political convention and he "seemed" pompous? As I stated before I am not a fan of the Bramble family and would like nothing more then to see that family fade from public life, I will leave it at that. In my opinion the report I saw on TV and what I read on this blog within the last 48 hours seemed inconsistent to me. So if that makes me a jerk, fine.
And as for "sad for a while", you say you have had a change of heart...understandable. My point is this, is the reason to propagate this story (the change of heart) because of a "getback" at Bramble (or your father) or is it genuine. In my opinion if it where genuine the story would have been more anonymized and dropped. The blog is sufficiently embarrassing for a politician. And, no I do not think it should be deleted...it should and will be cached forever. And it will be something he will remember for a long time. My point is, how far do you drive the stake?
Looking at the clock the 15 minutes are up...
To "huh?":
All I have left to say to you is that you are acting like a jackass to think that you can understand someone's motives based on your limited view of their actions and a complete lack of understanding of the inner workings of a mind different from your own. Please do not project yourself onto me.
Now I am a jackass? Nice...So, to think you can't understand someone based on a limited view, huh? Seems to me that is what this whole situation is about. Your limited run in with Bramble. And yet you wrote a pretty neat letter telling him that he was just like your father...funny how the limited view expands on other sides.
You threw this out there...
Indeed, I did. I admit, early on in this situation, I was not thinking through everything I said. I had not yet had time to process everything before people started asking questions. I felt sorry for the post at first, realizing that Bramble could have been having a bad day and it was unfair of me to attack him for it, hence my letter of apology (the one on here was the first draft). But after so many assurances that this was not an isolated incident, my guilt has waned. And I didn't say you were a jackass. I said that, in this instance, you are acting like one. I chose the words carefully because I consider that an important difference.
Amen, little sister!
Fear leads to killing?
No, I am not a treehugger or extremist or anything but just think it really sucked of you to kill that spider and write about it in the most disgusting way.
you needed only to put a glass on top of him and slide some paper under him so you could move him to an open widow and let him go about his business.
Spiders will not hurt you and are vital for the environment.
Do you make it a point of killing things that you fear? Even if they are only an inch long?
funny that you would make it a point to publicize someone who hurt your feelings, yet think nothing of squishing a creature that meant you no harm.
I fully expect you to delete this entry, as it might hurt your feelings instead of glorify you.
wow, just wow.
I certainly am not a fan of spiders.
Ok they scare the bejeebers out of me, but as a bulky (250lb) 6ft male who apparently is quite capable of looking scary himself, I have been called upon (more than once) to deal with unwanted visitors of the eight-legged and furry variety.
I have a small cupboard in the kitchen in which I store empty jars. every so often I will forward these jars to people who like to make preserves but I always make sure I keep 2 or 3 for myself and that I have lids for them. If a spider shows up somewhere uninvited I simply cover it with a jar. They invariably climb the inside of it and then I quickly turn it upright and put the lid on. If I'm feeling brave I'll sit somwhere and give it a lecture before releasing it to the wild or sometimes I'll even keep it for a bit so I can show others how brave I was but usually I'll fill the jar with fly spray and toss it in the bin
I just posted my bit and then read km's post - obviously this person has no idea of the fear that a spider can invoke.
On the surface of it - yes, it's cruel to destroy something thaT COMMON SENSE AND REASON TELL US CAN NOT REALLY HARM US,
BUT - as you say FEAR invokes adverse responses
I would sooner stomp a spider than feel it on me - but every so often I make the effort to try and be reasonable about it
A part of me is ashamed of my irrational fear but I refuse to shamed for ridding my life of unwanted nuisances
sam i sisifo ....or sometimes I'll even keep it for a bit so I can show others how brave I was but usually I'll fill the jar with fly spray and toss it in the bin
why would you do such a thing???
Yes, I am afraid of them, too. But what a horrible way to kill something!!!! What kind of person would do something like that and let everyone know about it? That is worse than just squishing it quickly.
sad for a while I get you on the spider thing. I'm crazy afraid of them myself too. It's completely irrational, the fear I hold in my heart for them. I understand that it's completely irrational and I know deep down in my heart that that tiny little guy isn't going to kill me. But he (or she) still scares the ever living hell out of me.
For the people in the world like km who are flabbergasted by such a violent display toward an insect... If you actually have a fear of spiders, I mean a straight up, body tenses and locks up because of a tiny one inch black legged insect, the last thing you can see yourself doing is getting close and personal with it trying to keep it alive and trap it in a jar. Most phobia's are irrational, and people have all kinds of weird phobias. Try not to cast your stones to harshly km. Just because you find it easy to capture and release a spider doesn't mean everyone does.
Oh yeah, and let me also mention it's one freaking insect. You aren't exactly going to end the world and disrupt the flow of nature itself by squishing one spider.
an actual fear of spiders?
I will put it this way....
I do not freeze and my throat does not lock up and i don't get chills or anything like that. However, if there is a spider in the room, my eyes are glued to him lest he come near me. And there is no sleeping if there is a spider anywhere in the house. The thought of having a spider crawl on me gives me the physical heebie jeebies. If there is one in another room, the door will be closed and that room will not be entered if at all possible. If it is small, I will jar and garden it. If it is large, I wait for someone braver than I.
But, not being in mortal fear of spiders means I could not possibly understand how horrible it is to put any living creature in a jar with fly spray and let it die like that.
I am not saying I would not ever kill something. What I mean to say is that if there is no way around it and something must be killed, quick, swift and with as least possible suffering as possible is the only way to go.
And as for disrupting the world with the death of one insect.. same can be said for humans. ;)
Now, to each his own. I don't think I will come back here to read more about the justifications for all the horrible ways to kill things.
Take care folks.
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