Wimpy

It was one of the wimpiest moments of my life. I came home, flipped on the light, rounded the corner, and saw a shadowy movement that wasn’t supposed to be there. It was on the ceiling between my bedroom and the bathroom. I turned the hallway light on, hoping that it was nothing. But then I reached for the bug spray. It was a big, ugly spider. I mean, I’m not scared of spiders really, but this one had a big hairy back and sprawling legs. I didn’t want to be walking underneath it to get to the bathroom and have it suddenly jump on me. I used up the whole can of insect killer, but still, he was wearily moving around. My imagination started going – “you know, I’m in Africa, there are all kinds of dangerous insects and such”, “it could have some kind of poisonous venom”. I decided the best thing was to get my surgical safety glasses just in case he had some kind of dangerous spraying potential. I reached for the broom and tried to charge him with the handle. But to no avail, he crawled in a little crevice. I could still see his legs wiggling around inside. I don’t usually sit around wishing for a husband, but boy, in that moment I wanted some man to come kill this creature. So, I had no choice – I called my neighbor Jim, who is a general surgeon, as a husband-like fill in to squash him to death.

I began the conversation with an explanation that there was an 8 cm spider (probably more like 5, but when he was hiding in that crevice, I remembered him like he was 8cm), really ugly, I used up all my bug spray, etc, etc. Then I just broke down and said it, “Can you just come kill him?” He was over in a skinny minute, and brought his own fly swatter with him. I kind of wished he would have brought some more sturdy type of weapon so that it would justify my calling him for intervention. But, he used that fly swatter in a mighty, destructive way.  Two swats and there was just green spider juice left on my ceiling, with no signs that there was once such a vile arachnid clinging there.

As he left I mentioned that he should not tell anyone about this episode. After the door closed behind him, I began my deep belly laugh. It hit me that I had just called my neighbor to come kill a spider. I felt the impact of it even more, and laughed even harder as I put my surgical glasses away. I got a little caught up in the moment. My family would be ashamed of me. Perhaps I should be ashamed of myself. Yep, probably so, that was kind of shameful, I’m an embarrassment.