On Spiders
My thought, whatever it was, derailed. We were on our way back from work, my carpooling buddy Lauren and I. I was saying something unimportant (probably about work), thinking about something less important, and pulling down the passenger side sun visor.
As I did this, I was mid-sentence. As I did this, I noticed a small but particularly vicious-looking spider crawl across the vanity mirror of the "sunny," as I'm led to believe Aussies call it. Or more likely I'm wrong, and that's what they call sunglasses. Yes, that's it. Sunnies.
Back to story. Mid-sentence, something along the lines of "well I don't know what she says over there but I do know that she's absolutely batshit crazy and by the way there's a spider crawling across your sun visor."
"Oh my god," She winced, "I'm scared of spiders! It looks nasty! Get it out, get it out, GET IT OUT!"
She was driving, she had her hands off of the wheel and eyes on the spider. Thankfully we were on a straightaway.
I rolled the sap-stained and squeaky automatic window down halfway, angled a finger, and flicked the spider right onto the glass of the window. The agile little spider deftly held onto the glass, and Lauren didn't do much more than shakingly ask for it to expelled once more, this time with feeling.
So I rolled the window down more, letting the spider walk onto the rubber sealing shit that is always on the bottom of car windows. The radio was drowned out by engine sounds, the whoosh of moving air. I was thinking about how I have to shave my moustache off.
And goatee. For a reenactment.
I flicked the spider once more, off into the never at sixty miles an hour. Half of me hopes he landed on a kind blade of grass by way of some ultra-ninja spider matrix trick. I think at one point between ejecting our stowaway and rolling the window back up we passed a motorcycle cop.
Lauren caught her breath. She was more shaken just at that point than earlier in the day, when we were almost hit by a non-observant Toyota and ran off the freeway. I had long ago learned to be somewhat stoic toward these things.
"Oh god," she sighed, "I hate spiders so much. Ew!"
As I did this, I was mid-sentence. As I did this, I noticed a small but particularly vicious-looking spider crawl across the vanity mirror of the "sunny," as I'm led to believe Aussies call it. Or more likely I'm wrong, and that's what they call sunglasses. Yes, that's it. Sunnies.
Back to story. Mid-sentence, something along the lines of "well I don't know what she says over there but I do know that she's absolutely batshit crazy and by the way there's a spider crawling across your sun visor."
"Oh my god," She winced, "I'm scared of spiders! It looks nasty! Get it out, get it out, GET IT OUT!"
She was driving, she had her hands off of the wheel and eyes on the spider. Thankfully we were on a straightaway.
I rolled the sap-stained and squeaky automatic window down halfway, angled a finger, and flicked the spider right onto the glass of the window. The agile little spider deftly held onto the glass, and Lauren didn't do much more than shakingly ask for it to expelled once more, this time with feeling.
So I rolled the window down more, letting the spider walk onto the rubber sealing shit that is always on the bottom of car windows. The radio was drowned out by engine sounds, the whoosh of moving air. I was thinking about how I have to shave my moustache off.
And goatee. For a reenactment.
I flicked the spider once more, off into the never at sixty miles an hour. Half of me hopes he landed on a kind blade of grass by way of some ultra-ninja spider matrix trick. I think at one point between ejecting our stowaway and rolling the window back up we passed a motorcycle cop.
Lauren caught her breath. She was more shaken just at that point than earlier in the day, when we were almost hit by a non-observant Toyota and ran off the freeway. I had long ago learned to be somewhat stoic toward these things.
"Oh god," she sighed, "I hate spiders so much. Ew!"