Sorry I’m Not Home Right Now I’m Walking in a Spider Web

Here’s the deal.

There is only one thing worse than being in the presence of a giant spider and that’s walking into its web first.

Gah.

More than anything in the entire world, I hate spiders.

It is half the reason I got married. So I wouldn’t have to kill them.

Only thing is, I married someone who is actually bad at killing spiders.

I was single long enough to know how to do it myself: if they’re up high you get something long and smash it or if you can’t reach it to smash it you swat at it just to get it down onto the floor where then you have to be ready with a shoe to smash it. Of course if it’s already on the floor you just get a shoe. See?

It’s not brain surgery.

I do have a kind reverence for all living things. Just so you know.

If the spider is small enough, as in, bigger than a pinhead but smaller than the width of a Crayola marker, I will save it. (Usually). I will put it outside. Any bigger than that, like the one in my bathroom on Sunday morning, they’re headed to the giant spiderweb in the sky.

So anyways, it was 5:30 in the morning and dark and my eyes were only half open enough for me to navigate and I walked into the toilet closet which is where our toilet lives, behind a little slidey door in the master bathroom.

As I walked in, I walked into the spiderweb, which woke me up in a shot and I began swatting wildly to get this sticky stringy mess off of me while envisioning whatever lives on it crawling all over me, fully aware that no good can come of this.

I flick the light on and scan because if I see nothing, I know it’s on me. However, at the same time I hope don’t see something, but there he was. Up where the wall meets the ceiling, behind the toilet.

HUGE.

All I could think was, “Thank GOD that thing was not on me.”

I respond of course by running out of the room yelling, “Kill the spider! Kill the spider!” through my dark quiet house at 5:30 in the morning.

My husband hears my wild cries and goes off to perform his husbandly duties for which he hath signed up and agreed to in our vows on our wedding day, expecting to see something tiny (like most days because I cry “spider” at the small ones too).

He goes into the bathroom but he never comes out.

He’s in there so long, in fact, that I began to wonder who’s winning.

I needed to leave pretty soon for my bike ride, the whole reason I was up at 0-dark-30, but I didn’t want to know what was going on in there, (although I was listening, I had heard a few smashes but still my husband never emerged). So I ran into my room, grabbed my clothes and ran out into the dining room to get dressed.

15 minutes later, I’m curious now so I walked back into the bathroom to inquire on the status.

It turns out he had thrown a roll of toilet paper at it, the spider crumpled and fell, but there was no body. He couldnt find it.

Oh no. This will not do at all.

I left the room full well knowing this will not do but did not say anything out loud. (For that I was very proud.)

10 minutes later, my husband finally emerged in the doorway with a very serious face on  and said, “Come look.”

I did not want to.

I protested.

But he said, “Come see. I knew you wouldn’t rest without the body, it would have been like Osama Bin Laden, so there it is.”

Oh thank GOODNESS. He does know me. (Isn’t he sweet?)

I didn’t really want to see the body but he was right. I wouldn’t have believed him if he didn’t show me. I would have thought he was faking and would never have gone into my room or bathroom again.

But even now that the spider is gone, I’m still haunted. What if there are others?

He was a giant spider, the kind that was almost as big as my hand and would almost definitely weigh something if I put it on a scale. Now the bathroom carries the label of “spider room” and it will have that label for months and I try to avoid it at all costs but if I can’t, I first scan the walls and ceiling upon entry, rush in, do whatever, all while giving the room the stinkeye the entire time I have to be in there.

In fact, I am suspect about the entire house right now and everything looks like a spider. I jump when something touches me and I am suspicious of any dark spot in a corner and dark mounds of anything on the floor.

I can’t take it. I’m living in fear in my own house.

The good thing is, the kids don’t know. I’ve kept the giant spider a secret and somehow they’ve remained friends with spiders despite my fear of them. OK fine, I actually save the small ones while they’re watching.

But I still have a kind reverence for all living things! Really I do!

What are you afraid of and do you save or swat??

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