Last Thursday I was lying on the floor watching Burn Notice. I mean a biography on Albert Einstein. Yes, that was what I was doing, watching a biography to improve my brain.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. I turned my face and there, three inches from my eyes was the biggest spider that I have ever ever seen outside of a pet store, or loose in a friend's car in high school.
Let's explore that for a minute…..my friend who shall remain nameless, but his initials are Jeff Kaehler, had a pet tarantula that got loose in his car. Prior to the escape the spider had been much loved and well tended. Jeff reveled in displaying the spider's prowess at snapping #2 pencils with its formidable jaws. Therefore, once it was loose in the car there wasn't a lot Jeff could do about finding it and returning it to its cage if he also valued his fingers. And he did. Value his fingers that is. Sooooo, he left his poor lovely spider in the car, with the windows up, in the hot sun, in August, for days…..hoping that it would get hungry and come out so he could catch it. Or alternatively, and sadly, meet its demise so he could safely resume driving his car. Now, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that the story I heard was that after a week of no sign of the spider, he got into the car and drove away to the self serve car wash to use their giant vacuum cleaner to dispose of the corpse.
About half way there, he felt a slight tickle on his leg. He looked down, and sure enough there was his furry friend climbing his leg. He managed to pull over, capture the little guy in a baseball hat and put him in the glove box. Then he drove home, got the cage, opened the glove box, the spider JUMPED into his house and began devouring the waiting food. So all was right in spider land that day.
My story has a murkier ending.
I have always been a person who catches bugs and lets them go outside if at all possible. Where I live now my windows have fixed screens, so anything bigger than a ladybug can't be released out of the windows.
The evening of the visit from the giant spider I was already in my jammies. My front door opens onto a hallway, not to the great out of doors.
When I saw the giant spider, I jumped up and went into the kitchen to get something to catch it in. My dishwasher was running and all of my glasses and large mugs were inside. I scrambled around and found the mug in the photo.
I put the mug down in front of the spider and he climbed in. HE JUST BARELY FIT. I covered the top with a paperback book and ran squeaking to my front door. I tossed him into the hall as close to the exit door as possible.
There's a gap under the door and my hope was that he would find it and go outside. I went back to watching Burn Notice. I mean Albert.
A few minutes later I heard panicked screaming in the hall. It was a man's voice, screaming in a high pitched girly way and also swearing, quite loudly and inventively, in a much less girly way. A lot of doors opened and shut while other tenants looked out to see what was up.
I cracked my door and watched the spectacle. The guy was hopping around on one foot and then actually LEAPED into the air and grabbed hold of the staircase rail in one big sideways motion. He scrabbled at the rail with his feet churning until he found purchase for his giant sneakers and then he disappeared from sight.
I closed my door grinning and went back to watching tv. I checked the next day and there was no giant squished spider in the hall. My hope is that the little spider guy came to no harm and is living happily outside.
Now my question is, does it make me a sexist because I found the freaking out guy funny? If it had been a woman or a child who discovered the little hairy guy, I would have felt bad about tossing a giant spider into the hall and scaring them.
But since it was a guy, I was amused.
Hmmmm….maybe I'm a closet sexist and don't know it….
[does some soul searching]
Nope, I'm pretty sure that no sexism was in play since the whole amusement thing hinged on this PARTICULAR guy freaking out about something that was one one hundreth of his size, and that he could have easily squished with his giant number twelve sneakers.
I hope you don't think less of me.
And speaking of thinking less of me…I wasn't watching a program about Albert Einstein to improve my brain.
I was watching Michael Weston blow stuff up. So there. And I bet Michael wouldn't have been bothered one little tiny bit by a big black hairy four inch spider…… unless it showed up in his yogurt. Then he would probably have been pissed. Michael hates it when anybody messes with his yogurt.
