The Ugly Brown Spider

I know bugs are everywhere.  North.  South.  East.  West.  But I never expected this.

I’m 4’11”.  The curtain rod needed to be placed at 7’11”.  I’ve never been very good at Math, but knew, as usual, I was lots of inches too short.  Nooo problem.  I’m pretty resourceful.  I’ll just gerrymander the ‘never-been-used-but-I-will-someday’ yoga mat on top of the end table and top it with a kitchen chair.

I hate hanging curtains.  And every time I do, I swear someday I’m going to hire someone to do it for me — if only finding a curtain hangerer wasn’t more work than hanging the curtains myself.  To do the job, I needed comfort.  Contacts out.  Comfy clothes on.  Pony tail in.  Chianti open.  Don’t judge.

About an hour later, and two glasses in, both rods and three panels are up! Great job D!  Almost done.  But that’s the problem with ‘almost.’  A lot can happen between … ‘almost’ and ‘done.’

Like — a spider.  A mean, ugly, surly, hairy, gnarly, creepy, crawling, sprawling uninvited spider.  REAL ugly.  With long crooked legs and rich carmel and mahogany colored fur spider… lurking on the hardwood floor… right next to the couch… next to the curtain… next to the ‘ladder’ … I was on top of.

I don’t like spiders.  They’re sneaky.  They’re fast.  And very hairy.  I once saw on Discovery Channel spiders don’t die of natural causes and that – on average – we ingest 8 spiders a year.  I’ve even read stories of medical examiners who find spiders and other bugs in our bellies when they – do what  medical examiners do.  I don’t know if it’s true, but I do know it’s gross.  Spiders are sinister.  They lurk and lie in wait for the right moment to set my amygdala on fire.  And I don’t care about how they save the ecosystem.  They can do that outside my flat.

Armed with a slipper, I crept down my ‘ladder.’  SMACK!  It moved!  Smack!  It moved AGAIN – this time to my horror – under the curtain panel so it can crawl up inside the panel where it’ll weave a web then burrow and spawn millions of baby spiders who will spawn more…. and I’ll die.

Panicked, I shook the curtain over and over until the spider appeared back on the floor.  We locked eyes and SMACK!!!  Smack!  Smack!  Smack!!!

“Ha HA!  You muther!,” I taunted (irrationally?).  “You come into my house??!!   Ha!  NO, I don’t think so!  You’re dead now.  How does it feel to want, huh?  Now what’ve you got to say?!”

I quickly ran into the kitchen, grabbed the Raid (I’d purchased a weeks earlier after seeing a bug in the hallway), before dousing several streams of petroleum distillate (ingredients) until I was sure the spider drowned.   “Take that!  Ha!  Yeah!  You think you’re all big and bad NOW don’t cha!  Drown sucka.  Drooowwwwwnnnn!!”  Needing to catch my breath, I sat on the couch to savor my last few sips before scooping up the carcass with a paper towel.  Which I did.

It was then I was reminded how easy it is to create things in our minds.  That – often in life – things really aren’t what they seem, especially through Chianti-colored eyes, and that my entertainment of choice of  ‘hanging curtains – contacts + wine = spider’ on a Saturday night was pretty  lame.

Seeing that I just killed an innocent Pottery Barn down feather.