A revelation

Have you ever walked into the bathroom and someone else was already in there? But it's YOUR bathroom? And you don't even like them and certainly don't want them there? Yeah, that's how I felt this morning when I stumbled into our bathroom (I don't wake up easily) and found this guy chillin' next to the toilet:

Okay, well I didn't actually get a picture of him. That is from a really awesome website, called What's that bug?. I went on there to identify this guy. I can't remember exactly now what he looked like, but I thought he was a wolf spider. Although any big, black, long-legged spider I see is automatically labeled a wolf spider in my mind.

So, many of you know my fear of spiders. I've always been afraid of spiders, but am also fascinated with them, which those two feelings don't really go together most of the time. Over the past couple of years, though, I have been more in touch with spiders. I have even gotten to the point where I can brush small ones into my hand and set them free. And what I tell people lately is, "I don't mind the big spiders. That might sound odd, but at least I know where they are at all times."

Well, I was caught in a big fat lie when I walked in on Wolfie up there. Fortunately, I refrained from screaming when he skedaddled across the tile, because I didn't want to wake up Josh. My first instinct was to call Stephen. That's right, call my husband who works 45 minutes away and tell him that a spider is in our bathroom. Thanks, but no thanks - I can imagine his response would involve some heavy sighing, some eye rolling, and a lot of "So whaddya want me to do about it!?" I actually closed the bathroom door, stuffed it with a towel so he couldn't escape, and had my hand on the phone... but couldn't do it. I had to handle this situation by myself.

Fortunately, we had roach and spider killer from Charleston. It was bought specifically for me, because it sprays from such a far away distance. Now I had to go face Wolfie. It was showdown time.

The rest of the story is pretty much a pattern - Wolfie racing away everytime I spray him, and I spray him and then jump back 10 feet. Also, I am sweating profusely. Not fun. I ended up cornering him and then not taking my finger off the nozzle until he was covered in white foamy poison. Just the way I like 'em. My next thought was, "What the crap do I do with the body?" And I'll tell ya, it took me about 20 seconds to decide to leave him there for Stephen to deal with 10 hours later.

But the independent side of me wanted to finish the job. I had to find some way to flush him, because I heard that babies inside a dead roach will live for up to 2 weeks after the mother has died. Obviously, in my mind, this carries over to spiders as well. (I realize this does not corroborate with the fact that I keep calling the spider a "he", but whatever). Anyway, I ended up sweeping him onto a dustpan, shaking uncontrollably and praying that he wasn't going to jump up and yell "BOO!!" anytime soon.

What an awful way to start out the morning.

Oh wait, that whole long story you just read? Only used as background story for my revelation. So, as I mentioned earlier, I got the spider picture above "from a really awesome website, called What's that bug?". I started looking through their spider pictures (of which they have twelve pages of) and you know, when the spiders aren't moving, they aren't so startling. In fact, I kind of started feeling sorta bad for the poor thing. I mean, we were both just trying to do what came natural to us. And he had probably gobbled up a good many insects for us that we didn't know about. As of today, I am making an action plan based on my revelation:

1. Do not judge spiders based on their looks

2. Take a picture of spiders when possible and identify them

3. Kill them only when they are a threat to myself or someone else

Maybe in a few years I'll be able to encourage my children to love these arachids and not have the same fear I have.

R.I.P. Wolfie.