Finally, I'm the Hero

So for what might possibly be the first time in our relationship, I got to be the hero.  Normally, Adam is the hero.  He's the one with the job (which meant that I could quit my crappy one).  He's the one who takes out (both) the giant-ass spiders (and the little ones).  He . . . ok, well, that's all I've got right now.

But yesterday, yesterday I got to be a hero for the first time (buying an overpriced undershirt probably doesn't count).  Where I'm afraid of spiders--mortally, irrationally, overreactionally afraid of spiders--slugs ook him out.  A lot.  He swears they don't scare him, just gross him out, but the boy backs way out of the way, and usually out of visual range, when there's a slug to be found.  Also, his toes curl under (way under).

This made his Monday morning shower a bit more interesting.  For those not in the know, our Lewisham Road flat is an underdwelling, or what others might call a daylight basement.  Our bedroom and bathroom are both below street level, though both do have windows, and an extraction fan in the bathroom.  Given the rather cheap construction of our flat (and due to necessity, to be fair) our extraction fan is essentially a large, mostly open pipe at head level in our shower.  As in, during the day, I can see daylight and plant life through it.  There is a bit of a grill on each end, but it doesn't exactly block anything.  In this case, what it did not block was a slug.

It wasn't a very big slug, to be fair.  As such things go, it might even have been a cute slug (I'm not afraid of them, but I'm not convinced of their "cuteness" either.  It's a slug.  Eugene girl or not, the Slug Queen is only awesome because it's a guy in drag.  Usually a hairy guy.).  What it was was an industrious slug. It had ventured in from the vent, up the tiles then across the tiles and down behind Adam's shampoo and conditioner bottles (Dove, if you're keeping score.  I use generic Boots or Morrison's knockoff of Herbal Essences.).  Behind his shampoo and conditioner is where he found it.  And the pile of eggs it was laying.

To his eternal credit, he did not scream.  He did, however, take what might be the fastest shower he's taken in the 5.5 years we've been together.  Shortly after the shower turned off, the door opened.  This was common at Titanic--we'd let the steam out and not worry about flashing the locals, since the bathroom opened into the hallway.  But here the bathroom is right across from our living room windows, which open onto a very busy alley.  So no opening of the door, meaning I was a bit surprised that the door opened so quickly.  He did not have enough time to do his hair (a much longer process than mine, in part because he has longer hair, and in part because he's weird), shave (for Monday is a shaving day), or brush his teeth (no explanation needed, except for structural symmetry here).

He came very quickly out of the bathroom, found me, and said, "I need you to take care of the slug in the shower.  And the eggs."  He was very calm about it.  Until I looked at his toes.  They were curled under, somewhere in the region of his heels.  But, hero though I got to be, I must give him credit.  If I felt the way he did, I'd have been out of there like a shot, screaming for him.  He finished his shower.  In record time, perhaps, and neither one of us is sure he got all the soap rinsed off, but he did finish his shower, even after finding his nemesis in the corner behind his shampoo and conditioner, spewing eggs out at a remarkable rate.

I am most proud of Adam.  Jealous at his calm, collected demeanor--excepting his hiding in the corner of the bedroom whilst I removed the offender and where he asked me to examine the entire house for slugs (which I actually did)--but proud.  And for once, I got to be the hero.