Spiders

Spiders. I am nauseatingly afraid of them. Before Seth left for Israel this summer I couldn't even deal with the tinest of them. They sent me into convulsions. After spending 5 weeks killing my own spiders (either in my house or my parent's [since Mom was pretty incapacitated while I was there]) I really felt I was doing better in the spider department. At least I can count to three and whack them with the fly swatter now. If they are really tiny I can even squish them with a tissue or step on them (the shoes have to have covered toes). But that was before THE BEAST.

I was on the phone with my mom and making the bed; I was barefoot. I was about to walk around the bottom end of the bed to pull up the sheet on the other side when I saw THE BEAST. This spider is probably, legs & all, about the size of a silver dollar. The body alone is the size of a small jelly bean. Maybe it's just me, but that's a big spider to be in your house! Well, I jump up on the bed, shaking from head to bare feet, and started convulsing. Mom is trying to give me suggestions from 2,000 miles away. "Drop something on it. Can you reach anything? Can you still see it? Don't let it get away!" I'm saying, "I can't. I can't. I HAVE TO! I can't!" Finally I bring myself to lean down, fairly close to the nasty thing to retrieve one of Seth's boots from the floor. "OK, I'm going to drop a shoe on it. I better have good aim, otherwise it's going to run away and I won't be able to find it! [shudder] Ready? 1-2-...." Mom is helping me count..."3!" I drop the shoe. The shoe hits the spider, but not dead on. It more jars it and injures it, well, not at all. What does happen is that a little cloud of "dust" sprays out, and starts...moving. I'm getting chills just typing it. Apparently Ms. Beast was carrying lots of tiny little baby beasts that are now covering my floor. The dropped shoe scared THE BEAST into the living room (still within my sight) so I jump down off the bed, put on shoes, and start walloping the microscopic horrors.

When the floor stops moving I again focus on the mama. She's NOT THERE. Apparently my beating on the floor scared her. I'm panicking again. "Mom, I can't see it! I don't know where it went!" And then I spotted it again. She is moving, more slowly now, out onto the open carpet in the middle of the room. I took up post on the trunk that serves as our coffee table, boot still in hand. Now Mom is instructing, "Can you put a pot over it?" "I don't want to leave. It might disappear again." "Good point. Well, you can't just drop something on it, you need to hit it with force or it might crawl out." "But I just CAN'T get that close to it." (She's still moving across the living room.) "Well, open the front door. Maybe it will go out." Good idea!

So I walk across the coffee table, balance one foot precariously on the folding chair set up in front of our computer cabinet, and test my balance by leaning as far over as I dare to open the front door. The thing starts running the other way! "No!," I'm shouting at it, "go the other way you stupid thing!" Then I start throwing toys (from Benjamin's toy bin at the end of the coffee table), hoping to scare it back in the right direction. It's not working. I am despairing. "I have to do this! It's going to get Benjamin," I'm telling Mom. "You can do it," she's telling me. Finally, I spot an umbrella in a bucket near the door. "I'm going to get the umbrella." I again take my precarious post, this time stepping all the way onto the folding chair. (Remember, my front door is open, traffic is going steadily by, and here I am, pregnant, standing on a folding chair in the middle of my living room. Just to give you a mental image.) I extend the umbrella (still folded and velcroed) so I don't have to get too close, and start pushing at THE BEAST with the end. She scurries toward the hinged side of the open door. Still, there is a crack big enough to accomodate her, so I keep shoving. And then, miracle of miracles, she goes out. Just like that! "She went out!," I'm yelling into the phone. "Well, SHUT THE DOOR," says Mom. :)

"Thanks for helping me be brave," I told Mom after it was all over, "Not that I'm suffering from any delusions that I was brave...."