Rain of Terror

It's late May and the weather is finally warming up here. The birds are nesting in the eaves of the building, squirrels are in the recycling bins fishing out half eaten granola bars, and you have to watch for the occasional lumbering skunk or possum in the early morning hour. But the Wildlife isn't limited to the outdoors.

Inside, the insects are blossoming as indoor insects will always do. The problem is, a great majority of them make their homes in the rafters above the rink between the steel ceiling and the insulating sheet. There's a lot of holes in that sheet. And bugs and spiders are raining down onto the ice with terrifying regularity.

Spiders are most common, tumbling down onto the ice where they get about a minute of scurry time before they start to slow down.

Spider on the ice!!!

I happen to love spiders, so if I can catch one just as he's slowing down, I'll warm him up and deposit him outside. Even a spider that seems frozen can sometimes be revived with some warm hands. A pair of male skaters were once circling a recently stopped spider of considerable size. I picked up the poor thing, whereupon male skaters freaked out and thought me crazy. I am a terrible person and could not resist chasing one of them with the spider, who was warming up and starting to scurry again. Where I come from, it's bad luck to kill a spider, so I figure saving them is good luck.

We also have House Millipedes that fall. I do not like house millipedes, a.k.a. Eyelash Bugs. Those things can freeze in hell for all I care, and for some reason we have kamikaze millipedes that seem to wait until I am right underneath them to drop. Maybe with my Catch and Release Spider Program, I'm hoping some of these spiders will remember my kindness and eat some of these hateful millipedes.

50 Pairs of Harlicks, please. I Pronate.

 

This morning I was practicing my Lunge/3-Turn manuever and realized I was on a lunging course with a centipede frozen to the ice. I tried to alter course, but there was an ice bump right on the inside three turn path, so I had no choice but to collapse the lunge rather than touch a centipede that might still have some scurry to it. (No, it was not a large centipede but it was ugly.)
Fortunately none of my millipede or centipede encounters have happened with my coaches present. I have managed to fool both of them into thinking I am a strong, brave woman ready to try most anything. If they saw a millipede land on me, my carefully crafted image would be shattered as I leaped in terror screaming "GET IT OFF ME GET IT OFF ME!!" And as much as I love Spiders, I don't like Surprise Spiders.

I know lots of my fellow skaters don't like the spiders, but maybe the Spiders are just like us. They just want to dance.

I iz John Curry Peeplez!!