| Every girl (and the occasional boy with “girl-ish” locks) knows the feeling; a tickling sensation, usually on the arm, that drives you nuts. You swat at it and swat at it, sure that it’s a bug or other type of creepy, crawly until finally, minutes (and sometimes hours) later, you find it; that sneaky piece of hair that has dislodged itself from your scalp and attached at just the right spot on your sleeve to hang over and give your arm the most annoying tickle every few seconds. We call it the “phantom hair”. And there are few things less grievous in this world. Or so I thought... A few days ago I was in the shower, just minding my own business when I felt it; the tickle. It started on my head and I gave it a couple swats. A few seconds later it moved down to my shoulder. I swatted again. All in all it was about a 30 second battle. I didn’t think much of it seeing as this feeling rarely amounts to a discovery other than one of these phantom hairs, but I gave it one more swat and this time I got it. But unfortunately it wasn’t a harmless little hair. It was a SPIDER! And not just any spider, the HUGEST spider I had ever seen with thick, hairy legs, and a GIANT body and I had just swatted it off my NECK! The thing was literally the size of my palm and it was now squirming around in my bathtub fighting for its life...and I was doing the same. But I was a lot louder about it. Max heard my screams and came running in to what he probably thought was a murder scene. It might as well have been. I was still screaming and almost in frantic tears as he did what any good man would do when a spider attacks their woman in the shower....give it a hot bath. He turned on the hottest hot water and watched it slowly stop moving until it went limp. He swore he was baked, but I knew better. After all, a creature that size does not give up the ghost after a two minute swim in a jacuzzi. He wasn’t dead, he was just relaxed. Max plucked him out of the water and placed him gently on a paper towel on the bathroom counter. I made him promise to kill him for good before I hopped back in the shower to finish what I had started and try to calm down a bit. 15 minutes later I got out and to my alarm I saw an empty paper towel and no spider carcass in sight. My heart started racing once again as I went to confront Max in the kitchen. “Tell me you flushed him,” was all I said. At that, his face dropped and he ran into the bathroom. He started frantically looking around the counter and picking up the clothes from the floor and shaking them out. I was seriously freaking out at this point and my blood was all but boiled. “You didn’t kill him?!” “I told you he was still alive!!” “He could be anywhere!” “Tell me you’re Joking. Just tell me you’re joking.” But there was no admittance. He kept looking, but I knew it was hopeless. The spider had come back to life and was now in hiding, waiting for the moment when I was just vulnerable enough for him to get his revenge...like being naked--in the shower. I proceeded to "question" Max for 15 minutes or so while he tried to calm me down, but it didn’t help. That monster was roaming around my house because the one man I am supposed to trust with my life let him live. I locked myself in my room and fumed, unable to speak to him for the next hour. All the while I thought up ways my attacker could reemerge and started to get more and more antsy being inside the house. I had to get out. I stormed into the kitchen where my failed assassin sat, working on his computer as if there wasn’t a gigantic, blood thirsty beast roaming around that could pounce at any moment. He tried to lighten the mood once again but I was having none of it. And then he showed me something that made me more upset than the empty paper towel ever could...a tupperware with a salted spider inside. Yes, he had it the whooooole time and thought it would be a funny joke to let me believe it had come back to life. All I can say is he’s lucky I love him because I sure didn’t like him too much that day.  Disclaimer: Despite the obvious trauma, Max and I are still engaged :) And he was just teasing (as he keeps reminding me), which is what big brothers are trained to do. And although I feel totally justified in my reaction, a tiny bit of it may have been due to the fact that I was PMSing. So, babe, next time check the calendar before you pull something like this...and, if at all possible, please don't ever let it involve a man-eating attack spider again. |
