I’m not easily startled.
I’m one of those “keep a cool head” people who can wade into emergencies and stare down creeps and walk dark alleys without seeing a boogeyman behind every dumpster.
However.
Spiders? Turn me into a complete and total KNOB.
I see one — well, okay, a spider bigger than say, the palm of my (very small! very small!) hand, not just a mini spider fooling around on a wall, because hey! hi. it’s cool you’re here, I understand our ecosystems need you, just stay out of my pants — and my brain goes absolutely blank.
I want to be ANYWHERE BUT THERE.
Which is essentially what happened in my bathroom early this morning when I came rolling in with my happy white towels, ready for a hot shower.
There he was.
On the shower curtain.
A behemoth (okay, not really, but he wasn’t tiny AND I DON’T CARE! IT WAS SHOCKING AT 5:45 AM!) of a spider, just waiting to torture me with his very presence.
I made an immediate and involuntary squeak toy noise, and shrank back against the wall.
He was blocking my Portal to Cleanliness, and I was not impressed.
I got a magazine — Avril Lavigne was on the cover, I hoped this would help — and steeled myself to take a whack at him, but every time I moved to do it, he moved enough to startle me into dropping Avril on the ground. And there was nothing solid behind him to help the magazine out, either, so my hits lacked little punch when they actually connected.
Sigh.
That’s how I ended up not showering, pulling my hair back into a ponytail, and doing my makeup bent in from the doorway, one eye trained on the interloper at all times. I’m aware of how ridiculous that sounds, but I literally could not force myself to stay in the room with him.
Finally, he made a hardcore break for it, and that’s when I screamed.
Screamed.
At 6:15 am.
It was at this moment that three things happened:
1. I felt like a COMPLETE TOOL and started to cry. CRY. Partly because of the spider and partly because I WAS BEING A TOOL.
2. Catherine came flying out of her room (she was due up any minute, it’s okay!) to see if I was injured in some way.
3. Dean heard me scream upstairs, and texted Catherine (who he thought was the screamer) to lie and say she woke up the baby (The baby was already awake, as was Dean.)
Here’s where the story improves, mostly because Catherine has a morbid fear of mice and understands the Power of Irrational Panic in Enclosed Spaces with Unpleasant Creatures. She would do no better than I did, if it had been a mouse.
(Which it wasn’t. It was something much smaller, of course. Did I mention that I’m a tool?)
Fortunately, Catherine is NOT afraid of spiders — a power I’d been trying to access for 30 minutes by whimpering in the direction of her door (forgetting, of course that Catherine sleeps like the dead.)
Once she figured out why I was crying, she went straight into the bathroom, shut the door, and less than a minute later, I heard the toilet flush. Then she came out, patted me on the back, and it was over.
Well, except for the fact that I still felt like a tool.
It didn’t take me long to get past it once I got to work and focused on other things, but part of me continues to flail because I never wanted to be one of those girls who was scared of stuff.
Especially a screamy one.
And here’s the worst part — when I’d have a cabin full of terrified girls gathered around a much larger spider at camp, I wouldn’t hesitate to actually PICK THE DAMN THING UP and put it outside, or dispatch of it in a less poetic and earth-friendly manner with my stowed-away and incredibly heavy copy of the Fall Preview Vogue.
I was the rescuer! Not the rescuee!
I’ve become a screamy girl. LATE IN LIFE.
I think this is more depressing than the day I realized that Andrew Ridgeley was never really going to have a comeback.
And I’m still not over that.
Sigh.
