A ferocious Beast

The other day my husband and I battled a ferocious beast. It was so horrible I had nightmares about it the next day. It all started when I went into the laundry room to reheat what was in the dryer so I can fold it all hot while watching my Law and Order finale’s. There it was not even two feet next to me and I swear it was the uglyest beast I have ever seen. Worst than the one I saw in College that the experts couldn’t even identify. We used to call them Rodney bugs because they were typically found in the Rodney dorms and they looked like a cross between a roach and a cricket and some other bug. That was so long ago.

The beast I found sitting silently in my laundry room was a big old nasty spider. It was sitting facing downward on a nicely folded blanket that I use to curl up infront of the TV with. I know it was waiting for me to get closer and attack me. That thing was vicious and absolutely ready to invade my home. It probably was calling its troops as I looked at it and screamed at the top of my lungs and backed away from it without taking my eyes off of it. The husband jumped up from his computer desk so fast it was amazing. He reacted as if I lit my hair on fire and couldn’t stifle the flames.

He asks me what happened and I tell him there is a humongous spider in there. I am jumping and cringing and getting all the heeby jeebies just telling him about it. He looks into the laundry room and he immediately freaks out. I am sure he was expecting one of those typical spiders that you find around the house that are not as scary in comparison and seem pretty easy to get rid of. But, nope. This one was big and hairy and grosser than the scene where Ben Stiiller gets his face squished on a hairy mans sweaty chest in “Along Came Polly”.

I immediately run for the camera to take a picture of it. The husband runs to the garage to find something to catch it with. It’s amazing how different our first instincts are. I go to take a picture while R digs for a tree trimmer and a clear box. R’s intentions were quite obvious but I had to get this picture. I had to show my bug expert and ask her what it was and WHY THE HELL WAS IT IN MY HOUSE??!! My poor friend has had to experience all my bug woes over the years but I think this time both R and I entertained her quite well.

I send the picture to my friend and call her. While we are on the phone R and I try to come up with a strategy on how to get it out of our home. My friend tells me that this is not a bug to fuck around with it, that we should just get rid of it. She goes on speakerphone while we gear up to battle the beast. We argue over who is going to nudge it and who will step on it. I could swear that for a good 10 minutes this was going on. And of course, the bug expert is on the line listening to us bicker at each other.

“You know I can’t go near spiders.”
“What? Neither can I.”
“Yes you can, your just making that up.”
“I was the one who found it, you get to kill it.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Yes it is.”
“We should capture it and study it.”
“What the hell for? Its big and disgusting and it has to die.”

So the husband holds the tree trimmer firmly and I am trying to hold the flashlight steady because you know by now the damn thing moved into the dark folds. I try to back away as far as I could in the room and R just kept pushing me forward because it was my job to step, capture or keep an eye on it. Whichever was needed. So as R is poking and prodding the hairy monster, it moves. It keeps moving even after we were able to get parts of it off. R started to beat the blanket and it finally stopped moving. It was in a whole bunch of pieces, on the blanket that was now on the floor. All while R was doing his thing with the tree shears I am squealing and freaking out and I actually believe R was too. You would have to ask my friend that was still on the speakerphone listening to our episode of “how not to kill a spider”.

After the massacre we carefully looked at all the pieces of that nasty monster on my beautiful blue snuggle blanket. R asked me what we are going to do with it and I immediately say,

“We are going to throw it out.”
“How are you going to get it off that blanket?”
“Are you kidding me, I’m not going to touch that thing again.”
“You mean your gonna throw the whole blanket away?”
“You bet your ass I’m throwing it away. Unless you want to sleep with it again?”
“Ill go get you a bag.”

It took a lot of maneuvering and a bit of bravery to get the bag over the blanket without touching anything. I did get that whole blanket in there and its ready for the garbage men to take the spider to its final resting place.

R and I went back to our computers. There is nothing like some couple bonding.