Attack of the giant SPIDER.

Saturday is my day to change sheets.

I was briskly stripping our bed, taking off the baby blue sheets and replacing them with the mahogany ones. I love my brown sheets. They are Egyptian cotton, 1000 thread count and they are soft as butter. I have no qualms about spending big bucks on sheets. It is my SLEEP, people. It matters to me. A lot.

So, there I was, sliding on the new sheets. I sheepishly admit that yes, I did fall down on top of the sheet and smell it and rub my face in it's softness. Because I just fucking roll that way, okay? I am a tactile sort of person. So, while I am laying on the bed, rubbing my face in that softness, I see something move out of the corner of my eye.

Abrupt change to sit up position.

It was a SPIDER.

A large black spider. And it was big. Bigger than the usual spiders around here. I will say that it was about as big as a quarter including it's legs. Now, I can see some of you out there making smarmy faces at me, suggesting perhaps that I may be a bit of a cream puff.

I am. I do not like spiders. My Mother actually liked spiders. She was Irish and as you know, the Irish have many superstitions. One of her deep beliefs was that a spider will not take residence in a home that is dirty or unhappy.

Which explains why you see so many spiders in dank, dark basements and smelly attics.

My Mother never killed a spider in her life. She would scoop them up in her hands and put them in her relocation program. She relocated them out to the flower garden. Even in the Winter. In Iowa. Where it is fucking freezing and they died of exposure within minutes.

Oh well.

I do not like spiders for the same reason that I do not like cats.

They are fast, they are shifty and I strongly suspect that they are smarter than I am.

Spiders....dart.

I HATE THAT.

They are faster than a 16 year old boy's hands in the back seat of a car.

I sat very still and stared at that spider in horror.

It was taunting me. I could feel it. It was not one bit scared of me.

I thought to call Bing as she is the house spider slayer, but remembered that she was outside raking leaves. She would not be pleased if I called her to come in and slay a spider. Even if it WAS a menacing, sneaky, Jack Nicholson in The Shining type of spider. ("Heeeeeeerrrrrrreee's Johhhhhhhhhhnnnyy!")

I decided that I would not grab it. It might bite me and I well remember the last time a spider bit me.

It was when Liv was an infant. With colic. I was sitting, barefoot, in the rocker with her and she was FINALLY asleep. And she was a very light sleeper. I kid you not, if the phone rang when she was napping, she would wake up and be mad as hell about it. I used to turn the phones off when she napped and then forget to turn them back on, resulting in friends and family thinking that I had decided that this motherhood thing was just not for me, folks and offed myself. So, anyhoo...I was sitting quietly in the chair when I felt this sort of...tickle...on the bottom of my foot followed by a sharp STINGGGGGGG. I was so well trained not to jostle Liv by that time that I never even flinched although something inside of me was screaming JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A SESAME SEED BUN THAT FUCKING HURT! And then I saw a rather large brown house spider traipsing away from my foot and I knew I had been a smelly foot snack for a spider.

It took MONTHS for that spider bite to heal. It swelled up right on the arch of my foot, leaving me hobbling around within minutes of the bite. And then, well....I stupidly lanced it and pus came spurting all over.

Yellow pus, folks. Yup. You betcha.

I ended up making a doctor friend stop at my house on his way home from the hospital. He agreed with me that it was a spider bite all right. We agreed on a treatment and I STILL had to lance that thing several times before it healed. It took MONTHS.

So, I do not especially like spiders.

Okay....returning to my beautiful mahogany sheeted bed, where I was so happy and carefree once and was now held hostage by a spider. A wicked, chortling spider.

Neither one of us moved, although he was daring me to.

I finally decided that I was going to get up v e r y s l o w l y. I did this. The spider stayed put. I whispered, "You stay put now, you nasty arachnid!"

He chuckled.

I raced to the bathroom for toilet paper to pick him up and squish him.

And yes, bright angels, you guessed it.

He was gone when I returned ten seconds later.

I tore that bed apart. No sign of him.

The dog came in and I enlisted his help in locating the spider. I berated him for not psychically knowing that I needed help a few minutes earlier.

"Aren't dogs supposed to be psychic? Couldn't you SENSE my fear and come rescue me, Socks?"

To which he replied, "Alpha woman, I don't like spiders either. They are worse than squirrels, dude."

We didn't find the spider.

Eventually, I sighed and gave up. Went downstairs to start the sheets in the washer. I hoped that the spider had decided to go take a swim in the toilet or maybe slide down the bathtub drain for a nap after his happy time of scaring an innocent woman. Maybe he wanted to rush home to his family to brag about his feat: "Fuck, dudes! You should have seen that human's face. She was scared out of her mind! It was priceless. Better than that time that we scared the dog!" I pictured all of the spider's family sitting around tossing back spider beers, one in each leg and having a good hoot.

I forgot about the spider.

We watched the game. (GO HUSKERS. SUH, YOU ARE DA MAN! I WANT TO KISS YOUR FACE OFF, MR. SUH! AND CRICK, I LOVE YOU, TOO, BIG GUY! HELO, YOU ARE ONE FAST FUCKER! WE WON. WE WON!!! WE WON!!!)

Okay, sorry for that. It just comes over me and I can't stop it...

We went to bed after the game.

I woke up this morning and in the soft morning light, I sleepily looked over at Bing, who had her back to me. I noticed the hair on the back of her neck moving.

UM...WHAT THE FUCK?

I NOTICED THE HAIR ON THE BACK OF HER NECK MOVING?????

At just that second, I heard her say, "OUCH!"

She reached back with her BARE HAND and grasped....yes....you know it.

THE BIG SPIDER!

She leaped out of bed and after saying some choice naughty words, yes, Bing swears. Even worse than me sometimes. Who'da thunk it?......

She stalked off to the bathroom, pissed off at being so rudely awakened and flushed that sucker down the toilet.

No more funny stories for you to tell, big nasty spider!

She washed her hands and came back to bed. By that time, I had leaped out of bed and flung the covers around looking for spider friends. Perhaps they had decided to have an early morning picnic on those delicious 1000 thread count mahogany sheets.

Nope. Just the one. Well, I think so anyway.

Bing has a rather large bite on her neck, it looks a bit vampirish, except that it is in the wrong place for Edward Cullen fang marks.

And I must have one spanking clean, happy bed, according to my dear sainted Irish mother's belief.

I almost wished that we had kept the dead spider. We could have maybe strung it up on the wall as a warning to his friends and family. DON'T MESS WITH BING AND MARIA!

It's a sweet Autumn Sunday. Liv has a basketball game this afternoon (and she is turning into quite the little athlete...at her last game, parents kept yelling, "Get the ball to LIV!" because she has a knack for making baskets.)

No one has the flu in this house anymore!

The HUSKERS WON!!

And best of all, that nasty spider is DEAD!