The Girl Who Cried Tarantula

I went to space camp in seventh grade. Yes, I went to space camp, when I was delusional enough to believe that I was good at math and science. This was also before everyone got a cell phone for his or her tenth birthday. Mom suggested that I keep a journal so I didn't forget anything about my day. I should journal daily, she said. If I missed even one day, that day's events that were so amazing in the moment would become "lizards on the wall". This slanguage meant that the really cool things one day wouldn't seem quite so cool later. Metaphorically, my lizards would get bigger every day because our activities just kept getting better, the previous days' lizards would shrink in comparison.

This is where we come to the much more literal slanguage called "spiders on the floor".

Walter is gone for a couple months; he's logging in the forests of Northern California. So I'm exploring what Sex and the City calls SSB, my Secret Single Behavior. This includes, but is not limited to, changing into my jammies upon entering the front door, folding laundry on the couch, excessively talking to my dogs, and re-watching my favorite television series on DVD.

My first glorious night of exploring my SSB, I was confronted by one of my greatest fears. I opened the bathroom door and a (seemingly) HUGE brown spider darted in front of me and under the corner of the carpet. It narrowly missed my bare toes. I screamed and jumped and flailed my arms, like girls do. I donned my tennis shoes and picked up a pair of Walt's size twelves, one in either hand. Determined to handle this, for lack of any other options, I bravely kicked the cabinet door above where the spider disappeared under the carpet corner. He scampered out, looked at me, laughed, and returned to his hiding place. The second session of screaming and jumping and arm-flailing took place while holding Walt's heavy shoes. I tried the cabinet-kicking technique again, but the spider had learned his lesson. He remained hidden. With no bug spray in the house, I resorted to the next best thing.
I coated the corner of the carpet with my extra sticky, super-volumizing hairspray, hoping to asphyxiate the little bastard. I slept with the light on and awoke to find Sonnie, my yellow lab, resting her head in the exact spot where the spider disappeared. I convinced myself that she ate it and slept off the side effects, thus, saving my life.

I meant to write about that night immediately after the traumatizing event took place. However, I wasn't proactive enough, and I let the story percolate as I forced my co-workers tohear about my near-death experience with what I thought was a baby tarantula.

"I swear, it was a baby tarantula," I said. In truth, there was no possible way that I could've known if it was a tarantula, I grew up in a home where the exterminators visited frequently enough that they had their own keys to the house. There were no bugs. I'd hardly encountered spiders throughout the course of my life.

I moved my things from my master bathroom, where said encounter took place, to the spider-free guest bathroom. I moved on with my life, stopped wearing my tennis shoes around the house, and quit checking the floor for crawly things before opening doors in my own home.

Then, last night, while turning off the light in the guest bathroom, I thought about picking up the towel on the floor. But, a real, live, honest-to-(no joke)-goodness TARANTULA was perched atop the sand-colored towel, eye, eye, eye, eye, eyeing me. I managed to not scream and jump and flail in the face of the tarantula. I feared he would take it as a challenge and chase me. I used my cat-like speed and reflexes to dodge around the door and waited until I got to the living room to scream and jump and flail.

"Whaddo I do, whaddo I do, whaddo I do," I mumbled like the average straight jacket-wearing citizen. Screw SSB, I thought. If my new SSB was killing gigantic arachnids, I'd gladly hand over my alone time. I tried to flatten my goosebumps and ignore my chills. Really, what was I going to do?

Naturally, I sent a text message to my ever-practical friend, Shelbi. I called my ever-brave little sister who lives halfway across the country from me. She'd chased a snake out of the family garage the week before, and I thought she'd have some words of wisdom. Being that it was after midnight in her time zone, she didn't answer and called me back.

I shrieked at her that there was a tarantula on the towel on the bathroom floor.

She groggily asked, "Why was there a towel on the floor?"

"Irrelevant, Kelsy. A tarantula," I repeated. "And, I'm home alone."

"Kill it," she said. Wonderful words of wisdom.

I wanted to cry. Being that the guest bathroom door was still open, I needed to make a swift decision.
I'd received a message from Shelbi in the meantine, "Do you want me and Jay to come kill it?" Shelbi was going to share her guy friend with me?

"Yes. Please?" I replied, hoping that she was honestly offering, not mocking.

"We'll be there in a few. Trap it."

Right, trap it.

I peeked through the crack in the door to make sure my nemesis was staying put. He was. I carefully pulled the door closed, careful to keep my feet, now in tennis shoes, away from the gap under the door. I dropped one beach towel, then another. I pressed the towels against the gap and secured them with three of Walt's heavy size twelves.

Shelbi and Jay arrived; I was thankful that they really meant they'd help me with this critter catastrophe.

After mocking my barricade and moving the towels and shoes, Jay approached the creature. The toilet flushed, and Jay appeared in the living room.

"Get it?" I asked.

"Yep."

"Did you flush it down the toilet?" I asked, exasperated.

"Yep."

Great, I thought. It was bad enough that the spider was on the bathroom floor. Now he's in my toilet.

"You killed it first though, right?"

"Yep."

I supposed that was acceptable, as long as he was dead.

"What would you have done if we couldn't have come over?" Shelbi asked.

"Locked him in the bathroom and hoped that he would starve to death eventually."

Shelbi and Jay doubled over with laughter, but I hadn't considered any other option.

I thanked them profusely, and then I was alone in the house where there used to be a tarantula. My couch is taller than my bed, and tarantulas are too heavy to climb vertically. (I may have made that up.) So I got four hours of sleep, on my couch, with both the lights and my tennis shoes on.

This morning at work I felt like a fraud when I, again, told my co-workers of my tarantula adventures. They listened politely and added exasperated interjections. But, this time, it was a genuine tarantula, not the tiny brown imposter of two evenings prior. I was telling the truth both times, but when my perception of tarantulas changed drastically, I was left feeling like the imposter.

The spiders, like the "lizards on the wall" of my space camp days, had gotten larger and more eventful. I didn't intentionally skew facts, but I felt like the girl who cried tarantula.

I'm a Writer; Therefore, I Blog.

Whenver I tell people that I write, I'm a writer, that I'm going to be a writer when I grow up, they always ask if I have a blog. To be a writer, I need a blog. To keep up my blog and make it count for something, I need people to follow my blog. To get anything out of my blog in the future, I need to prove that I can write consistently and keep followers who could potentially purchase my books, should I have a shot at publishing one day.

So, here I am. I'm blogging. You should follow. I'll make you laugh, I promise.