Arachnophobia

Few things in my universe scare me the way a spider can.  Baby spiders, not so much - I've learned to handle them & throw them out w/out losing my mind or control of my bodily functions...

But large spiders...  anything over head-of-a-pin-size, really...  send me reeling.  And screaming.

Today was no exception... 

Today I send a BIG shout out to the GINORMOUS SPIDER who made me later than I already was for work this morning and who then sat trapped for most of the day - after skittering MADLY about in the darkness under my bed while I pole-vaulted from side to side on hands and knees trying to trap him - under a hi-ball glass at the foot of my bed. 

And just to flesh out the morning's horror and excitement for you, it all started when I walked into my bedroom to dress and was momentarily frozen as I saw him GALLOPING hell for leather across my BEDROOM floor... 

ONLY to disappear UNDER MY BED! 

Now, I don't mind rodents, I don't mind reptiles, I don't mind any manner of small, furry, fanged mammals...

Spiders, however... 

Well, let's just say the thoughts that flit rapid-fire through my mind as I watched him scuttle under the edge of my dust ruffle as to what might happen in the dark of night while I slept if I just left him to his own devices in whatever lair he created for himself under my bed has given me chills as I type this and think of him. 

MEH!! ::shudder:: 

Now, I have to laugh at what I must've looked like trying to trap him, and I SERIOUSLY debated the merits of just leaving him to find his own way home rather than sucking it up and trapping him...

for about .2 of a second...! 

But then my mother's 'boogey-man' teachings from childhood took over, my irrational fear of spiders went off the chart, and my brain ran amok with the possibilities open to him while I slept! 

Side note:  Someone posted a pic of a MONSTROUS spider sitting on top of a t.p. roll with the quote "Where is your god now?!" on Jason Hawes (The Atlantic Paranormal Society co-founder and Ghost Hunters star) wall this a.m. and I just had to laugh because that's exactly what I thought one person who posted on my spider story today was going to say after he wrote that it would be hilarious if "...he done flipped the glass, washed it & left a note saying...". 

Yeauh.  That shit's not funny.  ::deadpanlook:: 

Anyway, my mama always taught me not to kill bugs/spiders because "they're just doing their spider/bug business and trying to get home to their little spider/bug families" - yes, this is the same woman who unwittingly fueled my childhood boogey-man fears with stories of her own... but there ya go - AND... I have that whole Christian/Buddhist-y thing about "God made him for a purpose/it's not up to me to decide when he dies" thing in my head too...  but the bad thing is...I truly think spider/bug squashing is a genetic thing built into us all because I WANT to squish 'em & be done. 

So the spider saga continued when I went home for lunch...  I checked on him first...  fully expecting to see him gone - I know, doesn't make sense but fear often doesn't - and there he is, sitting in an upright pose that gave me palpitations thinking at first that he was in that legs-up-scary-spider-ready-to-strike pose... 

Nope... he's just sittin' laaaarge...

Just siiiitin' and looking at me.  Still as a statue.

SO.  Knowing FULL well I'll go utterly screeching-howler-monkey-chittering-insane if I put a piece of paper under the glass and in the course of picking him up, it bends & he manages to dart out a crack and up my arm, I get one of my son's graduation cards off the pile on the piano - yes, testing each one for stiffness factor AND thinness for maximum "seal-age" - I go back in, slide it gingerly under the edge of the glass and, not wanting to break his little spider legs as I put it all the way under, I ease it towards him, wiggling it back & forth to startle him into running onto it.

He just sits there.  Looking at me.  Still as a statue.

Dammit.

I'm determined, though, and a few gut-wrenching minutes later - bowels now turned to water from sheer fright - I finally find the right wiggle combo & he runs onto the card and ROUND AND ROUND the glass like one of those trick motorcycle people in the round metal cages...

And as he's running his circuit he does a new trick...  he HOPS a couple of times to add to my terror! 

JesusMaryandJoseph, I almost hyperventilated! 

He finally comes to a rest, I get myself under control, get him up and into the kitchen to put him out the back door...  and I realize I have to stop and put him down to unlock the deadbolt. 

Dammitdammitdammit!

And what's he do??  EVERY single movement I make, HE goes zipping around the card and glass like he's on crack...  and NOW I'm ready to throw up.

I get the back door unlocked, pick him back up, sending him into renewed laps, and I get out the back door...

Only to find, the neighbor's cat.  Their really friendly cat.  SO friendly I know I can't let the spider go until I love on him and then shoo him away so he won't wind around me 'til I trip and drop the spider on myself or jolt the glass so the spider runs OUT onto me... 

Either of which surely would've necessitated my son calling the mortuary when he got home and found me stiff and blue on the back deck...

Or...  

If I manage to maintain control of the spider, he'll pounce on it and eat it when I let it go.  And then adrenaline would make me kill the cat.

SO.

I put the spider down as far from my back door as possible - which is a space of about 2 feet because I'm on a second floor deck - I loooove the cat, scratch the cat, strooooke the cat...

Then shoohimawaypickuptheglassandrunawayfastasIcan!! 

Yes, I can only go about a foot, but still...

He just sits there on the card.  Looking at me. Still as a statue.

DAMMIT!!

Ok, I have to get back to work and I can't leave my son's graduation card out there with showers in the forecast, so NOW I'm done with this little bastard!!

I stomp and wave my hands towards him and he...

FREAKIN' CHARGES ME!!!!

Blood curdling scream would not be too strong a description... 

AND I ranawayasfastasIcould...!!

Yes, the whole remaining foot to my door...

And as I look back and realize he's gaining astro-turf on me, I come to the realization at the exact same moment that there IS nowhere for me to go without having to step/jump OVER him...

Which my irrationally INSANE fear will not allow me to do!! 

AT this point, fortunately, the spider saga became anti-climactic or I might have hurled myself over the railing of the deck to certain disaster...

Thankfully, he stopped.  Right at the edge of the door mat I was standing on.

Shaking and exhausted, but STILL totally done with this crap, I stomp again, praying he doesn't come up ONto the mat, which he doesn't, and as I watch him run towards the little dark crevice beside the wall where my grill is butted up against and my outdoor chairs are stacked I figure it's all good because I won't use THOSE things again until next year after he's LONG since frozen to death and I can sweep his dried up little husk of a body off with the winter's accumulated dirt.

For good measure, though, I go inside and close and latch my dining room window so he doesn't try to gain re-entry since it's just over the railing the grill and chairs are lined up alongside... 

And now...

As I sit here typing and thinking...

It hits me...  

And I just pray to all that's holy he doesn't crawl back in through the bathroom window further down that wall that I forgot to close.