Terrible, Terrible, Terrible.

Something terrible happened to me yesterday.  Something truly, truly horrible.  Brace yourself, Gentle Reader.  This may be a very difficult post to read.

I had just gotten back home from picking up Lucas and Max from school.  My hand was on the doorknob of my bedroom, just getting ready to close the door.  (Closing the door to our bedroom is a wise thing to do, because Harry is always looking for a way to get into my bedroom; then into my bathroom; then into a tub of Vaseline to happily rub into the new carpet.)  

Just as I was closing the door, I looked up and saw a spider in the corner.  Not a tiny spider, no.  This was a healthy, well fed, malice and evil in his heart sized spider.  I think he was a fiddle back (a brown recluse if you're not from these parts).  Oh, and by the way; in case you are from a magical place where you are safe from such horrors and have no reason for knowing, fiddle backs are poisonous.  Like, make your arm rot off poisonous.  As a general rule, I assume that any spider I find in the house is a fiddle back.  They aren't always, or course.  Occasionally, I will get a warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest from  graciously escorting a harmless spider outside and granting him the gift of life... instead of squishing him with toilet paper.  But this is rare.  In general I have a kill it!  Kill it!  KILL IT! rule when it comes to spiders in the house.  Even when I'm not positive they are a fiddle back, (or as I like to call them, The Bitey Kind) that little monster is getting squashed.  In the past I've had some remorse, a little bit of disquiet for killing something that has never done me a personal wrong. It does feel a bit like spider racial profiling to go about squishing them willy nilly...  but I've come to terms with that.  Totally over it.  It's fine.  As a rule, if you are a spider and you are in my house, I am going to kill you with a flip flop.  I will not be sorry.  Not even a little bit.  I will call you a bad word under my breath, with a malevolent gleam in my eye and a smile on my lips.  

I haven't always been this freaked out by spiders.  But I haven't always had young to protect either.  I'm forever on the lookout.  I check my shoes before putting them on.  I do a spider looksie on everything I touch in the garage.  I tie all of my hair up in a bun on the top of my head when I sleep, so that my hair doesn't fall behind the bed and make a fiddle back ladder for the little jerks to climb up and bite my face off in the night.  I freaking hate spiders.  I hate them.  No.  Really.  

I.  Hate.  Them.

I want fiddle backs eradicated from the entire planet.  Extinct.  Gone.  No more.

Apparently I have a reputation with the spiders, and this one knew of my flip flop plans.  In the half second it took for me to glance down at the doorknob to pull the bedroom door shut and then glance back to the corner...  He was gone.  The murderous beast was gone.  Gone.

Gone.

Disappeared.  I looked up the wall, down the wall.  Spidey was nowhere.  I took my flip flop and pulled it across the top of the door frame...  but no spidey.  

Panic.

Searching for the spider.  

Not high.  Not low.  Not on the door frame.  Search frantically on the floor, which unfortunately is hardwood in that hallway and is therefore inconveniently spider colored.

Then I could think of no other conclusion.  Dear Lord, NO!  It's on me, it's on me, it's on ME!!!  

I started patting myself down and shaking out my clothes.  

Oh, thank God, thank God, thank God.  Not in my clothes, not in my hair.  But still, no spidey.  He vanished.

But I know...  spidey is here.

He's here.  Somewhere in my house.  He knows I was going to kill him with my flip flop.  Spidey knows...  And he wants revenge.  He's just waiting.  Biding his time.  Oh, the horror.  The unspeakable horror.

He knows where I sleep...

Where I used to sleep, anyway.  Now it's where I stare at the ceiling in terror.  

I am only consoled by one small thing...

At least there's that.