Spider

There is not a photograph of the spider in this post. You're welcome.

OMG, I was sitting on my porch the other night, trolling the inter-webs for lovely smut and/or jewelry, and minding my own business, when suddenly a hideous beast walked across my computer screen. I do not know how he fit on the screen, given his enormousness, but he managed. I also don't know where my courage came from, but I was badass brave. Not only did I not piss myself, but I managed not to leap up, shrieking, and hurl my laptop over the edge of the balcony, as most normal people would do when confronted with such a thing. I mean: this scaley, fuzzy, black, leggy, creature had dangled from a thread coming out of his butt and plopped onto my screen. It was seriously so gross.  And yet, I did not faint, have a heart attack, leap over the balcony my own self, or puke. I was a fucking heroine. All I did was freeze, panic quietly to myself, put my laptop on the floor (by then he'd left the screen, thank goodness), and back away slowly.

I went inside where B was on the phone with her sister and communicated to her with our Language Of The Eyes that there was an insect situation. She normally would leap to my aid, and I don't want to make it seem otherwise. However, there was some complicated plane-ticket-miles-sharing discussion taking place. We all know that sharing airline miles requires you to complete multiple calculus problems while standing on your head and frying tofu, so I didn't blame her for ignoring me. I was on my own.

I decided I needed a broom to knock down the spider webs, since last I had seen, the spider was gallivanting about the porch, swinging to and fro with spider glee. How my family and friends had managed to sit on a porch so web-ridden all summer without noticing was confusing, but I quickly put it out of mind. I was traumatized enough. I had to think for five actual minutes about where the broom was because my brain was not functioning. Finally, I found it, but then I had to complete 649 further tasks in order to take on the spider situation.

First, I turned on the porch light. The bulb had burned out, of course, which meant I had to move the dining room chair into the kitchen and scramble onto the counter to reach the new bulbs. Then I had to move the chair to the porch and stand on it to replace the bulb, but the casing of the lamp was closed with a screw, and I couldn't open it. I had to get a screwdriver, which was upstairs, and then I couldn't see the screw in the dark, so I had to fetch a flashlight (up and down again). I finally replaced the light bulb, but I'd dropped the screw in the process, and because I am insane I needed to find it, in the dark, with a spider lurking. I for some reason decided the lamp needed the screw to hold the top on, even though the top weighs about ten pounds and is protected from wind, and the other screw has been missing for about 16 years, and nothing has happened. Still, I had visions of the top falling off and knocking Ari unconscious. I finally found the screw and put the top of the lamp back on. Then, before I could venture into the spider's territory, I had to procure body armor. I tried and failed. Why so hard? They should have it at the gas station for just such and emergency, no? I put on Ari's bicycle helmet instead, which makes no sense, as it is too small and full of holes, so the spider could still get into (heaven forfend!) my hair. But it made me feel better.

The spider had disappeared in the seven hours it had taken me to do all of these things, so I decided to move to the furthest corner of the porch from where I had last seen him. I gathered my things, which were many and fragile. Phone. Speaker. Full glass of wine. Laptop. Kindle. Sweatshirt. Bug-away candle (malfunctioning piece of shit). I had to tiptoe quietly back and forth to retrieve all of the things. Because if the spider heard me, he might attack. Never mind that he probably could see me perfectly well, what with the new light bulb, and my being about 9284023 times his size, and him having like 600 eyes. Yes, better not think about that because: scary! And yuck! (re: eyes) So, yeah, he probably saw me.

And listen here, you assholes who are thinking, "that poor spider is probably far more frightened of you than you are of him!" Bull. Shit. A spider does not have a big enough brain to feel this kind of fear. His little, spider heart would explode if he felt like I did. He couldn't handle it. I'm grateful that he left while I was preparing my attack because I didn't really want to go there. There is no way to rid oneself of a pest without looking at it, and I was feeling like his visage would subtract many years from my life. Here is a drawing of the spider, which is not a photo because I know you don't want to see that. (Also, he wasn't posing.) My drawing will give you some idea, though, of what I was dealing with.

The end.