Suggested soundtrack: Ennio Morricone's score for The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
You know how it is. You're walking downstairs at 1 am, making a beeline for the can of Coke Mountain Dew in the fridge, when you catch something from the corner of your eye that's just a little bit off. You do a little double-take, without breaking stride, and there it is.
An enormous spider clinging to the frame of the bathroom door.
Now, I admit to arachnophobia, and you might think my judgment of what constitutes "enormous" is unreliable. But I am not exaggerating. With its creepy long legs all hunched up ready to pounce, it was well over an inch long. Spread out it would have been close to three inches across. And it was in my house.
I mentioned it was 1 am, right? Everyone else was asleep. I had no backup. At the moment, I didn't even have any freaking shoes on. And I was terrified that, in the twenty seconds it would take to cross the hall and grab a pair of shoes, the spider would vanish into some cranny, and I would have to move out-of-state. Because the only thing worse than a huge spider that you can see is the huge spider that you know is there but that you cannot see.
So I darted into the room, grabbed my shoes, and came back out to put them on, not letting the spider out of my sight for longer than absolutely necessary. It was still there. Then there was another excursion, to fetch a can of ant-spray from under the kitchen sink. No, it was not made specifically with arachnids in mind, but I thought it would probably suffice to stun the bugger, pun absolutely intended. I returned: Spider still present. And then I needed a nice thwacky book, just in case the spider crawled up the wall and couldn't be taken out by shoes.
This is how bad I am. It took longer to pick a book than to put on the shoes. Because I can't smash spider guts all over Prisoner of Azkaban! And I got that copy of The Magic Schoolbus Inside the Human Body for my seventh birthday! I settled on a copy of Brian's Winter, because it's not hard to replace and it wasn't inscribed to anyone.
So I advanced on the target with a book in one hand, a spray can in other hand, and Chucks with rainbow bubbles on my feet, all the while wondering how far away I could remain and still have a reasonable hope of the bug spray actually hitting the spider. I hesitated for a minute, thinking of all the outlandish ways things could go wrong. My (least) favorite was the face-hugging Alien scenario.
The spider twitched a leg.
I whimpered.
And then I shook that spray can and let loose.
It dropped right onto the floor and attempted to crawl away. I advanced, still spraying, and came down with an almighty stomp on its chitinous backside. Dead spider is dead.
I had about a third of a second to celebrate my victory, and then the outward force of my stomp, combined with the slipperiness of the bug-spray residue, caused me to slide and fall flat on my ass.
But like I said, it was 1 am. So no one ever has to know about it...
An enormous spider clinging to the frame of the bathroom door.
Now, I admit to arachnophobia, and you might think my judgment of what constitutes "enormous" is unreliable. But I am not exaggerating. With its creepy long legs all hunched up ready to pounce, it was well over an inch long. Spread out it would have been close to three inches across. And it was in my house.
I mentioned it was 1 am, right? Everyone else was asleep. I had no backup. At the moment, I didn't even have any freaking shoes on. And I was terrified that, in the twenty seconds it would take to cross the hall and grab a pair of shoes, the spider would vanish into some cranny, and I would have to move out-of-state. Because the only thing worse than a huge spider that you can see is the huge spider that you know is there but that you cannot see.
So I darted into the room, grabbed my shoes, and came back out to put them on, not letting the spider out of my sight for longer than absolutely necessary. It was still there. Then there was another excursion, to fetch a can of ant-spray from under the kitchen sink. No, it was not made specifically with arachnids in mind, but I thought it would probably suffice to stun the bugger, pun absolutely intended. I returned: Spider still present. And then I needed a nice thwacky book, just in case the spider crawled up the wall and couldn't be taken out by shoes.
This is how bad I am. It took longer to pick a book than to put on the shoes. Because I can't smash spider guts all over Prisoner of Azkaban! And I got that copy of The Magic Schoolbus Inside the Human Body for my seventh birthday! I settled on a copy of Brian's Winter, because it's not hard to replace and it wasn't inscribed to anyone.
So I advanced on the target with a book in one hand, a spray can in other hand, and Chucks with rainbow bubbles on my feet, all the while wondering how far away I could remain and still have a reasonable hope of the bug spray actually hitting the spider. I hesitated for a minute, thinking of all the outlandish ways things could go wrong. My (least) favorite was the face-hugging Alien scenario.
The spider twitched a leg.
I whimpered.
And then I shook that spray can and let loose.
It dropped right onto the floor and attempted to crawl away. I advanced, still spraying, and came down with an almighty stomp on its chitinous backside. Dead spider is dead.
I had about a third of a second to celebrate my victory, and then the outward force of my stomp, combined with the slipperiness of the bug-spray residue, caused me to slide and fall flat on my ass.
But like I said, it was 1 am. So no one ever has to know about it...