You might be aware that I am afraid of spiders. If you didn't know, now you do. This is not some silly little fear, trying to be cute so somebody will take care of me. This is a real, live, horror. I have dreams in which I see a spider and then I wake up in a panic and can't go back to sleep.
All spiders have a radius of fear and death surrounding them, and the size of this radius depends on the size of the spider. Obviously I need to be further away from bigger spiders. I have had run-ins with spiders so large that I have had to step inside that radius in order for the RAID to hit them. These are times when my voice goes up a few octaves and it takes me a life time to be brave enough to spray the RAID. They always jump off the wall and make a run for it after the nerve agent hits, you know.
With that being said, I give you the following adventure:
This morning, as I was merging onto the interstate, I looked over my left shoulder to check for cars. This was a bad time to see a jumping spider the size of a dime on the driver's side window. It was inside, and there was no glass to protect me.
I was inside the radius, and I couldn't get out of it!!
I immediately started to panic. I swerved the car to the right, then realized once again that I was in a car on the interstate and needed to be able to drive or I would die from arachnophobia. I leaned as far as I could away from the window and dialed my adorable husband on speaker phone.
I started crying hysterically. (I told you, the fear is real!!!) He told me to get off the road. I couldn't just pull over because the interstate is a busy road and I don't know that I could just get right back on from the shoulder. I had to make it to the next exit. I was driving, and crying, and telling him that I couldn't pull off the road just yet. I kept looking over at the window to make sure I still knew the location of my stalker, and then when I would SEE the eight-legged assassin I would scream again. I was a mess.... there went my perfectly applied makeup...
I got to the next exit, went a bit faster than I probably should have on the off ramp, ran through a stop sign (after making sure it was clear, of course), and parked in a gravel area used by car-poolers for parking and picking people up. There was ONE person there, and he was just climbing into his red minivan. I said to my husband, "can I ask this guy to kill it???" He said "Yes, you can do that." Haha...
I parked. My husband told me to open the door. I couldn't open the driver door!!!! There was a JUMPING SPIDER on it!!!! If I opened the door, it could jump on me! No no, this 7-month pregnant lady was climbing over the center console and escaping from the passenger door! That is exactly what I did!!
I went over to the minivan and didn't know if the guy would see me. Luckily he did. I can only imagine what went through his mind as a shaking 7-month pregnant woman with mascara and shame all over her face approached his car. He rolled down the window, and I blurted out through hysterical tears, "there's a spider in my car! I'm terrified! Can you get it???" He smiled, and this was the only time that he seemed humored by the situation. (I guarantee he laughed later.)
He got out of his van and went to the back to look for something for squishing purposes. I don't even know what I was doing because I was in the process of being traumatized by this entire ordeal. My husband was still on the phone with me. The guy eventually located a tissue and he went to my car.
Would you believe that we couldn't find the spider?
I went back around to the passenger side to see if I could see it from that angle. Finally the man located the jumping jerk on the inside of the driver door and he squished it! I made him show me the body for identification purposes and just to know that he wasn't lying to appease me. Of course squished spiders make me want to vomit, so I couldn't look for long.
The anonymous hero left in a hurry (I hope I didn't make him late!), and I got back into my car. My husband said to me, "Umm, I think we need to work on this." I agreed... then I drove to work... and LUCKILY one of my lovely coworkers had mascara so I could fix my face.
Phew! Wow... what an adventure!!!
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