Mother of All Spiders

So, my sister came all the way from the East Coast for a visit this past weekend.  As we’ve gotten older and grown closer, we always end up laughing really hard about something that happens during our visit.  This is a significant improvement over our childhood which, if we spent more than fifteen minutes together, somebody ended up crying.  I’ve always been impressed with how we’ve matured.   Now we actually miss each other.

So, ”Juice” came all the way out from Baltimore to Nevada for a visit this past Friday.  By the time Friday night rolled around, we were wiped out and ready to head for bed.  Before going to sleep, I took the garbage out to the garage and spied something on the wall that I thought for sure Juice would like to see.  She had already turned in and was reading when I came in and said, “Wanna see something?”

“What is it?”

“A black widow… a really big one, too.”

“Okay.”

Now, this is the same person that so cleverly got out of yard work as a kid because she had my parents thoroughly convinced she was terrified of bugs.  When I tried the same excuse with dust bunnies to get out of cleaning, my parents laughed and handed me the Pledge and a rag.  Now, you tell me which one was the golden child.

Anyway, barefoot and pajama-clad we went out to the garage and I showed her the gigantic spider.  It was at least the size of my head.  Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating and it was about the size of a quarter – but it might as well have been the size of my head.

Would you want this making babies in your house?

“Wow!  Kill it.”

“Really?  You think I should kill it?”

“Yes.”

“But I hate the crunchy sound big spiders make when you kill them.”

“Kill it.  You have a family to protect.  I’m going inside.”

“No.  You’re staying out here with me and helping me kill it.”

At which time, my sister – the queen of getting out of any responsibilities that involve bugs – backs up fifteen feet.  I provide her with the broom and duster as weapons… you know, in case the spider flies of the wall and starts chasing her… fifteen feet away.  I then go get a shoe and actually put thought into which one I want to use.  I chose this darling gem of a WalMart special. 

Some pretty, no-name brand of a shoe. Or, pretend they're Jimmy Choo's like I do!

She then tells me to grab the camera because this is “blog-worthy material and must be documented.”  I think she’s nuts, but still grab the camera anyway and take before pictures of the spider, my shoe, and my sister standing in another county.  (Note:  To preserve anonymity, her head is purposefully cut out of this photo.  That and she wasn’t wearing any make-up so she forbid me from making it a true Kodak moment.)

I call this one "Weaponry and Anonymity"

After a lengthy hysterical discussion on my fear of the spider jumping off the wall and grabbing me by the face, I swing my pretty high heel at it, waiting to hear the crunch.  WHACK!  Nothing.  Not only did I miss, but the spider taunted me by slowly moving down the wall an inch with a way-too-casual attitude.  Clearly he had a death wish.

Because I missed, my sister and I started laughing so hard I could barely see.  I swung again and WHACK!  I missed AGAIN.  This time the spider slowly walks behind a pair of gardening gloves and I’m almost certain he flipped me the finger on the way.

My sister and I are practically dying of laughter at this point.  Juice actually got close to look at the spider behind the gloves and even stood next to me as I slowly moved the gloves out of the way.  It was a bad angle to try to kill the spider, especially because it cleverly moved behind a wall-mounted shelving unit.  But I was bound and determined to protect my family from this vicious monster, so WHACK!  I swung again… and this time, I got him.  Only he flew into the air six inches from my face which caused me to scream like a little girl.  This then caused the funniest chain reaction. 

My sister, who was standing next to me at that moment, also screamed – but really, really loud – and did this little running in place thing that looked eerily similar to the thing the Flintstones would do to get their Flintstone car going.  It’s kind of a running-in-place thing, where you don’t go anywhere at first, but then you suddenly take off at terminal velocity, leaving behind a cloud of cartoon dust.  Yeah, and I mean she NAILED it!  Only, she also almost nailed my car too with the broom and duster weapons I gave her.  Apparently I was supposed to train her how to use her weaponry.

I whacked the spider one more time to make sure he was dead – although everything happened so fast, I might’ve hit him like four times, maybe five.  But if PETA asks, it was only once.  After my sister and I recover from laughing about her Flintstone defensive arts, she tells me to take a picture of the aftermath.  So, here’s the dead spider, the weapons we used and proof that, adding to our terror, we were indeed barefoot the whole time.  (Oooo, and don’t my toes on the right look nice? I got a pedi that morning.)

1 dead spider, 10 pretty toes

I love how my Friday night excitement has changed from raging keg parties to spider slaughtering.  I am certainly adding that to my resume under “Skills.”

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