Compost Studios

In honor of Halloween, I'm sharing my creepy spider story. Apologies to those who have already heard it or seen dramatic re-enactments at parties.

Not too long ago, in a faraway place called Virginia, there lived a Grrrl who did not think she suffered from arachnophobia........

It was a summer morning, and I was getting ready to take a walk with my Favorite Boy to see tadpoles in a deep puddle in the neighborhood. I went out to the garage to put on my sneakers, and as I reached in to pull up the tongue of the shoe, I felt a sharp prick on my hand. Ouch! Thinking there was a burr in the sneaker, I put my hand BACK INTO THE SNEAKER and felt a quick sting on my knuckle. As I was pondering what was in my shoe, out walked the biggest friggin' SPIDER EVER! I could actually see him swivel his head around and gaze at me with his creepy eyes. He walked TOWARD me with a swagger, as if daring me to squish his ENORMOUS body.

Did I unleash my inner Bitch and promptly make that spider two dimensional? No. Instead I screamed like I have never screamed before. This was not a shriek of surprise, this was a primal reaction. I only stopped screaming long enought to take my next breath and scream some more. And if the screaming wasn't bad enough, I actually did the hysterical woman dance, jumping up and down and flapping my hands like a frustrated toddler. And I started to cry. It was not my proudest moment.

The E-Man rushed out to the garage and asked me what was wrong. I pointed to the SPIDER, still defiantly holding its ground in spite of my hysterics. "That son of a bitch bit me--twice!!!!!" And I start sobbing uncontrollably. In my defense, this was not long after my BIG CAR ACCIDENT and before the meds, so let's consider I was a little on EDGE.

The E-Man, seeing me completely out of control, leads me to the bathroom to run cold water over the bites. He asks, "Are they extremely painful?"

I screech--"Nooooo. Noooo. I'm just FREAKED OUT! I AM COMPLETELY FREAKKKKKKKKED OUUUUUT!"

And that's when the E-Man calls 911, afraid I'm having some wild reaction to the spider bites. And then I'm mortified because "THIS IS NOT AN EMERGENCY. THIS A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!" I'm sure I'm going to be committed.

The EMTs don't take me away. They don't condescendingly tell me to calm down and get a grip. They don't offer me a cozy straitjacket and a little white pill. They admit the spider, now captured in a jar for identification, is HUGE. They make Spiderman jokes and don't make me feel like a jerk, even though, well, I feel like a jerk anyway. They even make me laugh a little. After they tell me to ice the bites down and watch for a reaction, they leave.

I tell E-Man, "I'm going to the chiropractor now [for my post accident therapy], and I want you to bomb the garage while I'm gone. I want every mother f--king spider in that space to wish it had never been born. I want a pesticide residue to kill everything with more than two legs for MONTHS."

And you know, he carried out the HIT for me. And I never loved him more than when I parked the car in the garage hours later and saw NO SIGNS OF INSECT LIFE. He even vacuumed up the webs, egg sacs, and spider poop throughout the garage and stuck the crevice attachment into every shoe in case there were any holdouts.

It was one of the nicest things he ever did for me. And if St. Francis of Assisi, witnessing this vengeful act of insecticide, signed the order sending us straight to hell that day, well, OK. At least I'd be spending eternity with my favorite exterminator.

Unless, of course, he's granted amnesty. Afterall, he took the biggest meanest, sassiest spider of all, the one that BIT HIS WIFE TWICE , and set it free in the backyard to be fruitful and multiply.

And to think I thought he loved me....

October 29, 2005