My Hero

April 8, 2010 at 8:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized and tagged: bugs, family, fathers, hero, love, thunderstorms

I know I haven’t been writing lately.

And I’m ashamed.

But an event just occurred that I HAVE to write about.

I was watching television in my room. Then all of a sudden my satellite signal went out. I looked outside, and a typhoon struck DC. Well maybe not a typhoon, but a really big storm. My lights were goin in and out and I started shakin a little bit.

See, there are a couple of things that I don’t like. The first is thunderstorms. I don’t mind rain, but the thunder and lightning aspect is quite frightening to me–unless I’m sleeping and I’m not even awake to experience it.

The second thing I don’t like is being alone. And that’s exactly what I was. Alone. I love my independence, I don’t love loneliness.

The third is bugs. I don’t like them. And to top it off, ever since the weather got warmer we’ve been having a minor ant problem in my house and the spiders have been goin crazy in my front yard just makin their homes everywhere. So I’ve already been paranoid these past few days.

So almost as if right on cue, I see a BIG LONG BUG WITH MANY LEGS crawling up my wall. I started freaking out.

Here’s the list of people I called.

1. My best friend/roommate who was on the train on her way back to where she’s from. I told her I was freakin out, and she listened like any good friend would. She told me she would pray for me. There really wasn’t anything she could do besides that, and I understood.

2. Boyfriend-straight to voicemail. Great. Now I’m startin to think maybe I shouldn’t have been a bitch to him earlier.

At this point the rain is picking up. My lights are going completely in and out. It was like the perfect set-up for a horror movie. And now I’m shaking hysterically and crying.

3. Boyfriend-once again…straight to voicemail. I assumed his phone was off at that point.

4. Boyfriend’s Cousin-I’m determined to get to him. But she didn’t pick up either.

5. Best Guy Friend-He’s trying to calm me down…I appreciated it but it wasn’t really working. He kept tellin me I had to kill it. That was just freakin me out even more. He gets credit for trying.

6. Old Flame? Yes, at this point I was pretty desperate. And guess what he tells me? To call the exterminator. Like they’re gonna come out in this tsunami to get one bug from my room…and then he asked me if the bug looked like a rat…what??? *click* WTF was I thinkin to call him?

So as I’m standing there…crying, shaking, going thru the hysterics, I decided to call the one man that knew exactly what I was going thru. That knew exactly how I reacted in these situations. My papa.

And then I felt stupid cuz he wasn’t the first one I called. He didn’t laugh at me like someone else did. He didn’t say “damn, that sucks” like someone else did. He didn’t say “call the exterminator” like SOMEONE else did. I described the bug to him, and he told me exactly what kind of bug it was, promised it wouldn’t hurt me, told me to go put on some boots and when I saw it again to just stomp on it. When I got off the phone with him, an instant calm overtook me and I never felt more powerful in my entire life.

So I went and put on my rain boots and stood there and waited for that sucker to come out. And there it was, thinkin it was just gonna run across my bedroom floor. So then I walked up to it, and I stomped on it so hard, a good 5 or 6 times and I screamed “Die, bitch, DIIIIEEEE!!!!!” And it was dead.

Then I stepped back, and I thought about everything. And I started crying…because my father hasn’t always been the best father in the world. But he’s always loved me. And besides my mother, he knows me more than anyone in the entire world. About 3 years ago, my father wouldn’t have been on that list of people to call but I’m so happy that now he is.

And I started thinkin about when I was a little girl. And I loved my daddy more than anyone in the world. I could not wait for my father to get home from work so I could jump in his arms. I could not wait for those Saturdays when he took me to the park out to ride my bike. I couldn’t wait for those field trips when my daddy would chaperone. He was always the only father chaperoning and the kids in my class thought he was the coolest ever. Or career day, when he brought all his firefighter equipment and let my class try on his coat and boots. There was nobody cooler than him, nobody more powerful. And I looked at him in awe, like he was some kind of superhero. But he is. He’s my own superhero…with super powers that  d e s t r o y  of all the bad guys.

And I know that no matter what happens in my lifetime…there is one man in my life that will never ever, and can never ever, and will never ever leave me.

And that’s my daddy.

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