I love most creatures big and small.
Having said that, I am not a fan of the reptile, rodent or bug families. And pretty close to the top of the list of creepy crawly things I don’t want to encounter is spiders. 
Now, having said that, I don’t mind the daddy long leg. When I was young, my dad taught me to pick them up by one leg, which makes all their other legs just sort of relax, so you can move them to another spot.
HOWEVER, small, furry, spiders terrify me. So it was no surprise the other night when one was crawling along the top of my wall/ceiling, that I was a bit…how shall we say….COMPLETELY, TOTALLY, INSANELY FREAKED OUT! Yes, I think that about sums it up nicely.
I happened to be on the phone at that time with my man who was out-of-town. There are many wonderful reasons for having a man and one of those happens to be the removal of the arachnid. We had been talking for about 45 minutes and during that time, the black spider was facing the opposite direction. When I said to my man, “I wonder how I am going to kill the spider?”
The darn thing turned around to face me.
I lie to you not.
So now I was dealing with a spider that could apparently hear and understand English.
I gulped.
He just stared.
I say he. It could have been a she. But it definitely carried itself like it was male.
We had a stare off before I told my man I really need to go and take care of it before it leapt onto the bed and took care of me.
So, me being me, I didn’t want to spray it with bug spray which would float down and get on the bedspread. I wanted something that would take care of the eight-legged-one and also smell good. Ah-ha! Pledge.
It seemed like such a logical choice at the time. Rid myself of the stalker and have a pleasant lemon scent.
So it took me another five minutes to gather my courage, enter the bedroom, Pledge in one hand and a large wad of paper towels to clean up the mess in the other. I put on a flip-flop just in case I needed to finish the deed with a final stomp.
I made my way towards the wall. He turned again to look at me. Great, now I would have to look him in the eye as I did the deed.
I shivered.
He moved in place.
I shook the can and hoped his horizontal jump wasn’t five feet.
I sprayed. He dropped. I looked on the floor for the body.
No body. No legs. Nada. Nothing. Zip.
Crap! This meant he probably fell on the top of window sill. I turned off the ceiling fan so I could stand on the bed. Legs wobbling, I stretched up to see if he was there. He was not. I sat back down on the bed. That could only mean one thing. He was in the curtains.
I gathered my courage and gingerly pulled each of the curtains from the wall and shook them. He didn’t reveal himself. Could that mean he was actually behind the blinds on the window? I didn’t want to startle him so I s—l—o—w—l—-y pulled up the mini blinds to no avail.
I was truly puzzled. Where had he gone? I spun around looking all over the ceiling to see if he was trying to make a sneaky escape. He was not.
Great.
Now I had a pissed off spider that could understand English and knew what I looked like. I couldn’t really fall asleep that night. I sat up most of the night brushing at tingling sensations that weren’t really there waiting for him to unleash his wrath on me.
The next day, I recounted the story to a male co-worker who laughed and said that Pledge was like honey to spiders.
Wonderful.
Now instead of an angry spider, I had one that was going to come to me for more sweet experiences. I was going to be like that lady in Florida who fed the alligator and then, one day when she didn’t, he busted down her door.
I can just see it now. There he will be, having grown to six-foot tall by twelve feet wide, due to my generous feeding of Pledge…waiting for me. I’ll walk in. The door will slam shut. I’ll turn around and his once beady little eyes will be the size of grapefruits. He’ll twitch three or four of his legs before he says…
“Hi, Honey. I’m home.”
Happy Moment of the Day: “A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water”.
— Eleanor Roosevelt
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