I See Spiders

Most people don't know this about me, but I see spiders. ALL THE TIME. There have been many times when my husband and I will be watching tv and I'll randomly jerk my head in one direction for no apparent reason. Why? Because I swear I see a spider out of the corner of my eye. I mean seriously, this happens at least twice a week, probably more. Most of the time there's nothing there and I know I must be losing my mind - or have some form of visual turrets.

But I do ACTUALLY see a spider about 40% of the time. Case in point: I'm doing a little house-sitting (house invading is more like it) this week. I'd like to preempt this with a very large "I'm sorry" to the couple who will probably rather not know the story I'm about to tell. The first night in the house was totally fine, I didn't have any head twitches of the spider persuasion. However, the second night, yikes. I really don't like spiders, really really. This may stem from seeing Arachnophobia way too many times as a youngster. Anyway, I have a box of stuff (ok, boxes, plural) in this house, sitting on the floor in the hall. I casually walk past it and immediately do the head spasm thing. OH my LORD. I'm pretty sure that thing could eat my face off.

On the very bottom edge of the box is the largest spider I have ever encountered. It's huge and brown and has scary legs and I'm convinced it's a brown recluse. I'm gonna die - because they bite you and then your skin starts to eat itself - I know for a fact because a guy in my business class got bitten by one and you should have seen this poor guy's hand eat itself away. Nasty. I freak out. I'm barefoot and the only item nearby to beat the living shit out of this thing is my brush. No way, then it truly will eat my face. I do a quick look around, half expecting to be Alice in Wonderland and a magical bottle of spider repellent appear saying "Use Me". No luck. What do I find? The best new bug repellent I've ever met: Shout! As in - gets stains out of your laundry "Shout!". I sprayed the spider once and it immediately balled up, fell off the box, and died. Shout is my new best friend. Me -1, Spiders -0.

Ah, but round 2 was only one day away. I get home from work to find the largest house centipede I've ever seen on the wall in the kitchen.

Right now my spider seeing accuracy is at about 110% and I need it to be -500%. The only thing I hate more than house centipedes are silverfish and those scary brown camel crickets...



Animals like this just shouldn't be allowed inside a human dwelling place. I didn't have the courage (or height) to kill this one so I just ignored it. And now I live in fear because the million legged creature disappeared from site an hour later. I'm hoping the mercy I showed the centipede will make its way through the spider nation so I don't get ganged up on for killing mister brown recluse. I'd love to keep my face covered with skin.