“I hate spiders.”
“I’m deathly afraid of spiders.”
I’m amazed at how many times I’ve chuckled as people confessed their fear and sometimes hatred of spiders. I’m not so much amused at their fear, but that spiders in general are small creatures with an enormous capacity to scare and terrorize. Even myself.
As I sat at a table with Tracy, Jenni, Bobby, Jack, and Mary’s friends Carla and Charlie at The Old Spaghetti Factory, Tracy talked about the traits of her future husband: loves God, has blue eyes, kills spiders for her. The last quality she desired spawned at least fifteen minutes of intense, animated, and vivid conversation. Perhaps the perfect ice breaker would be asking, “What’s your spider story?”
Jenni and I got home late last Saturday night looking forward to dropping into bed for some sleep. It was an ongoing workshop weekend for the Portland Swing Dance Club, and we had one more full day of workshops to go. We had to get up early the next day to go to dim sum for Mother’s Day with my mom.
We got ready to take a shower when I looked up and saw a large spider on the wall. We have vaulted ceilings in our apartment, so it is no easy task to get something that high. Normally, I don’t think either of us would give a spider the time of day, but due to the size of it, we were both convinced that it would come down to our bed and feast on our flesh during the night. The spider was on death row.
I cleared the sleeping bags and standing mirror directly below the spider. One thing I’ve learned over the years is to not allow the spider any place to hide if it should fall from the wall. If it makes it to the floor, the risk of it scurrying away is high. So, I took the end of a broom handle and began tapping near the spider, trying to draw it away from our dresser, which I didn’t want to move because it was heavy.
And what did the spider do? It ran toward the tapping. I tapped it some more hoping it would get a clue to move the opposite direction. As it came closer to the region above the dresser, I got impatient and gave my best stab at hitting it with the end of the broom handle. The spider fell behind the dresser.
DEFCON 1! DEFCON 1!
I immediately pulled the small bed-side stand next to our bed out and Jenni made sure it didn’t head for our bed. I dragged the dresser back from one corner and we didn’t see it. I dragged the other corner, and there it was… huddled in the carpet next to the wall.
Jenni brought out the death spray and gave the little bugger a poisonous toxin to kill it without me making a mess in the carpet. The demon knew what it was after the first shot and scurried into the dresser.
What to do then? I thought the insecticide would be enough to kill it over time. But Jenni wanted to be sure. So then, we stared at the dresser and prepared ourselves. It was like watching a suspense movie—where you know the “AHHHH” moment is coming, but you’re not sure when, but you can’t watch because you don’t want to be scared, but you keep watching because you don’t want to miss out on the plot, and all the while hoping the scare will be quick—and soon.
We put on our war faces and proceeded to pull out each drawer of the dresser. We then emptied all of Jenni’s clothes onto the floor and sifted through it. Nothing in the first. Nor the second, or the third, or the fourth. Ok, this is the last one.
Pull. Dump. Check?
Nothing. So both our heads turned back to the dresser, naked of its drawers. I grabbed a flashlight and beamed it all around until I saw something suspicious. A small darkness bulged out from the bottom edge inside the dresser.
“That’s not it, the spider was much bigger. That must be another spider that died in the dresser,” Jenni said. If she was right, we had lost the battle. I was pretty sure we didn’t see any black spots scurry away from the dresser, so I couldn’t imagine where it went.
Not to be a complete loss, I returned my attention to the small darkness and asked Jenni to shoot it—just in case it wasn’t quite as dead as we thought. It moved.
“Shoot it again!”
The darkness grew out of the bottom edge, with long slender legs gripping the wood to pull itself out. It was it. The beast emerged from its hiding spot, determined to defeat the married couple bent on its destruction.
As Jenni blasted it more with the insecticide and it looked like we got it. Then in a life-or-death crisis moment, the demon became alive, and made a mad dash toward the bed! Bad move, no one messes with Jenni’s bed.
BAM!
“Where did you get that tissue paper?” I asked. Faster than a speeding bullet, all I know was Jenni managed to grab a sheet of facial tissue and smashed the spider into the carpet. Chance of survival? None.
“I don’t know. Woah, check out its beefy legs!” Jenni replied.
“That’s ok dear, let’s go to bed”
“No, check them out! They’re huge!”
“Uh huh, see you in the shower.”
Don’t get me started on how I cursed in my sleep when I dreamt of a giant spider in the bathroom window curtains. But anyways, what’s your spider story?