6.30.2013

sunday




We may have to sell our house because of that spider. This is not a joke. I don't joke about spiders like that. While I knew intellectually that such things existed on the earth, I had never considered the possibility that they may exist in the guest bath. This leads to many questions. Why would a loving God create such a thing to begin with? How did it get in? I dead-bolted the door. So even though it looked fully capable of reaching up and turning the knob, the door should have been locked. The idea that it came in the way other spiders do (and who knows how that happens anyway? I have devoted a good deal of my life to studying the cracks around my baseboards and the physics of many of the house spiders I have encountered simply do not make sense) is ludicrous. Someone would have had to leave an entire brick out of a wall and wouldn't we have noticed? Another question is, will we soon have mice? Because now that spider is gone, there will be nothing to eat them. It's troubling.

Think of it this way: a tarantula's lankier cousin. Animal-sized body on a set of impressive flying buttresses. Legs that measure in inches just to the knee! Never met a razor, but should have been shaving a long time ago. Not quite the size of a Buick, but probably drives one. When I met Russ at the door, pale faced and breathless, to tell him there is something you need to see...and bring a BIG shoe...he counted on it being my usual overreaction. (In hindsight, I am slightly offended that he secretly thinks I have a "usual overreaction." But that is another topic.) He started putting away his fishing gear. I told him that it would behoove him to come NOW. He toweled off the dog. I told him that if it got away, I would be checking into a hotel. 

At least I can report that the spider had the courtesy to wait, patiently perched on the side of the wastebasket and casting its hairy hunched shadow across the wall. And when he saw the beast, Russ made a sound I have never heard him make in response to a spider. The sound a shiver makes in the spine of a brave man. Know what that sounds like? Because now I do.

I can only shudder to think what would have happened if he had been out of town. I probably would have closed the door, shoved towels into the crack underneath it, and taken myself to the Holiday Inn. The bathroom may have had to stay closed off permanently. And going from a house with two baths to a house with one would have been a serious hit to our property value. When we sell the house. Which we would be forced to.

We still may. Because although this morning I made myself "get back on the horse" with that bathroom, so to speak, I am not sure I can ever feel the same kind of affection for this house that I felt previously. My innocence is gone. And now I know that real spiders can happen. Anywhere, at any time...even to me.