Kate goes to bed at a decent hour because she has to get up at an unholy hour. Not me.
I usually drag up later once I’m filled up on my fancy pants tv shows. And let me tell you that I cannot get my fill of homosexual vampires, fairies, and demons lurking in the great Southern bayou. But my show wrapped in a profusion of violence and people being drained of their lifeblood and I figured it was a great time to head up to bed.
Kate was out, mouth slightly agap, curled on her side.
I climbed into bed and got out my iPad. I’m obsessed with many things and weather would be in the top 5. And we were slated to get some angry red globs, surrounded by pink halos (according to weather.com). Sweet.
Our house, The House of Lady Picklegoat (newly christened since the multitude of goat rescues) is made entirely of granite, so I like to taunt the weather now with a little, “bring it, Motha” under my breath.
And there I was in my comfort zone, taunting weather and filled up on gothic bloodsuckers, when I spied an eight legged horrorshow of a monster on the ceiling.
Accurate depiction of our spider
First, I am not even exaggerating, which I have a strong proclivity for doing—I freely admit that—but this was a full-on beast. I could call it a spider, but it was a beast of a spider and it was taking a leisurely stroll towards us on the ceiling.
Its body was the size of a dime, which sounds harmless, right? But the entire spider, when you count the legs, and you HAVE to count the legs–was larger than a silver dollar.
I wish this was a story about my fearlessness and my respect for all living creatures. Sadly, this is not such a tale.
This is the juncture when I let a very girlish scream slip out and shook Kate awake in terror, pointing at the behemoth approaching us on the right. Not quite awake yet, Kate muttered some nonsensical somethingorother and I gave her another shake.
Kate: What?
Me: There’s a giant spider on the ceiling, clearly stalking us.
Kate: ummm hmmm
Me: Can you even see? Are you awake?
Kate: (mumble mumble) Yeah. No, I can’t see.” (She fumbles and puts on her Linda Ellerbee glasses)
Me: See him? See him?
Kate: Wow, that’s a big one.
Me: What are we going to do? There was this infomercial once and I made fun of it. It was like the Flo-bee TM, but instead of cutting hair, it sucks terrifying creepies into a vacuum cleaner and then you just emptied the cartridge. Do you have one?
Kate (looking sorta annoyed): Of course I don’t.
Me: Can you catch him in something, like a paperbag or something and relocate him?
Kate: No.
Kate: You do realize that we’ve been co-habitating with him for awhile now, likely.
Me: That is not reassuring.
Since Kate was being totally worthless and I was paralyzed in fear, Satanic Terror Spider took advantage of our inaction and continued along on those stilt-like joints, now only 2 feet away.
So I pulled out my iPad and quickly found “House Spider Giganticus,” which I Googled, and then found on Wikipedia. I scan the article and the spider pictures look about the same as what I’m seeing live and in person. But the part that makes my spine seize up is the quote, “They are one of the only spiders to pierce the human skin.”
What the fuckity fuck? That shit is on my ceiling? For reals?
I take the time to read this bit to the very calm and not quite alert Kate. She repeats the quote back to me in slow motion and now I know that I have her attention and that she will fly into heroine mode.
(Hopefully I spelled that right so that you don’t think she’s a drug addict, because she’s totally not. I mean, she enjoys her red wine, as much as the next urban chick, but I will testify to her drug free state. In fact, she’s even judgemental about pot, which I’m not.
I also don’t enjoy pot, but not because I have a moral problem with it. It’s just that I’m highly allergic and my few collegiac attempts to try it resulted in dark, withdrawn self-flaggelation, which never feels good, happy, or munchy. So the hype doesn’t always mesh with the reality, which is really a truism about ALL of life.)
Anyway, Kate FINALLY was on the same page with me. Yay! But no. Because instead of flying into savior mode, she dove beneath the covers and pulled them tightly up over her head. At this point, the serial killer spider was about a foot from being directly over us and I clearly wasn’t getting any assistance.
Me: I’m going to sleep downstairs.
Kate: What? No, you can’t leave me alone up here with THAT?
Me: I can’t stay up here with THAT lurking above us, waiting to spin down on silk and suck out all of our blood.
Kate: Okay. Okay. You want me to kill it?
Me: Well…not really. But I think we’re out of options.
Kate: (heavy sigh) Alright.
She got one of my flip flops from the closet and had it inverted like she was going to smack the spider with the straps of the flop.
Me: Please don’t hit the spider with the wrong side of my flip flop. Those are Ralph Lauren’s.
Kate: Baby. (Dramatic pause. And her most annoyed tone). I’m not.
(I’m thinking: “WTF? Does she sport the Eastern Grip, like Nadal in tennis?)
Kate leaps up on the bed and sinks in, because we have that super comfy memory foam, and suddenly slaps at the ceilng and screams. I scream in reply.
The spider falls onto the bed and Kate’s on it, taking a swing. She screams again.
I scream again.
She swings. She screams.
I scream.
Then, she beats the spider into oblivion. Seven swings and whacks and its folded into a spider acordian and then I feel a little bit bad, but am mostly still scared.
Then, we start laughing because we’ve both been screaming our heads off and her beagle has run from the room like the house is ablaze.
Kate disposes of the body. I ask if she flushed it. She says, still annoyed, “of course!”
I’m still sort of chuckling but get back in bed…tentatively. I wonder if we’ve woken Walker, downstairs. She’s been asleep for hours and usually sleeps super soundly but we were shrieking quite shrilly.
Kate gets into bed and we both realize that our hearts are racing. I wonder how we’re going to sleep now. I wonder out loud if that spider was married or partnered.
That makes me both a little sad for the widowed partner and frightened that there might be a partner.
We are just about to switch off the lights, when I spot another long-legged beast in the attic access door frame, lurking.
Me: “Oh my God, no. Kate, there’s the other.”
Kate: “Remember, we’ve seen that one before.”
Me: “So, that one doesn’t make you nervous?”
Kate: “I think that one doesn’t stray from his habitat.”
I was too tired and battle weary to challenge either Kate or the spider and we turned off the lights.
