The One Where We All Screamed

This is a wolf spider. I minimized the picture because just looking at it freaked me out. Part of the the reason for that is because I don't like spiders. The other part of the reason is because this picture looks remarkably like the spider that was crawling on the wall in my home office the other night.

I was looking up something on the internet for some of my children when all of a sudden, this monster spider appeared near the ceiling. No one knows where it came from--a fact which disturbs me greatly--it just appeared.

My boys' reaction? "Whoa!"

My reaction? Screaming for my sons to come to my rescue.

One of them rolled up a newspaper, but it you splat something that big on the wall, what kind of a mess is it going to make? Can a newspaper even kill it? It was up over our heads on the wall, giving us a distinct disadvantage in attacking.

What if it jumped on our heads? Or worse. What if it grabbed the paper out of our hands and started beating us with it?

I say "we", but actually I was cowering in the corner.

My two oldest boys reluctantly moved forward to do battle with the monster spider. The three youngest (drawn out of bed by my screams) stood in the doorway and cheered their brothers on, all the while preparing to run if the creature got the upper hand. I continued to screech for them to get rid of it. Pandemonium hit a new level when the spider moved.

It was fast. Really fast.

Now it was on the wall above an armoire, and it was much more difficult to reach.

And closer to where I was sitting.

I moved almost as fast as the spider did. But in the opposite direction. Realizing that the battle must be fought, one of the boys threw a shoe at the spider, knocking it off the wall.

And down behind the furniture.

My son figured out of sight, out of mind, but I wasn't at all convinced. So my son asked me to finish looking up the information he needed while he searched for the spider. Two of them pushed and moved the heavy armoire away from the wall. I worked with one eye on the computer and one eye on the wall. The boys continued banging and moving generally stirring things up, almost dreading the thought of getting another look at the spider. In fact, they were so busy staring at the floor and getting behind the furniture that they didn't even see the spider again.

But I did. It suddenly skittered out from behind the armoire, once again high on the wall. And this time it was directly over me. With a bloodcurdling scream, I bolted for the door. The boys were all shouting as well, and into this wild scene walked my husband.

Indiana Jones threw us all disapproving looks for carrying on so about a spider. He did a doubletake when he actually saw the size of the spider. But then he walked into the room, grabbed a rolled up newspaper and killed the intruder. Then he disposed of it. Without a word he dumped the paper in the trash, gave us all a challenging glare and headed to bed. My hero.

I think it would have been better if he'd been wearing the hat and the whip.