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Spiders. Why does it always have to be spiders?

Last night, as I was going to bed, I turned on the overhead light, pulled back the covers and was going arrange the pillows, when a big black stocky spider about an inch across scurried from under the covers towards the stacked pillows at the head of the bed and disappeared under them.

Now, I wasn’t making a sound, but when I saw that spider scurry and disappear to a certain unknown hideaway under my mattress, my mind was screaming “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”

See, if that spider makes it under the pillows to the edge of the mattress and disappears between it and the wall it is lost to me.

I wouldn’t have been able to sleep in that room last night if a spider that big, that had been in my bed, simply disappeared into the room.

I could have gone on a Bug Hunt, but...that late at night, with a spider that big, athletic, and experienced, I was not going to find it.

In a flash, I knew my only chance was to hope the spider was motionless under the pillows, so in desperation, as my only option, I instantly grabbed all the pillows and flung them backwards towards the center of the bed hoping to drag the spider with them and expose it.

To my astonishment, the spider did appear, but to my deep horror, it made a beeline for the edge of the mattress where it could escape to safety.

All this, from the sighting of the spider to my flinging the pillows back could not have been more than two, maybe three seconds. And here I was, seeing the spider fleeing along with any chance of my actually sleeping in the house last night.

With an audible groan, I watched the spider disappear over the edge, and knew with a terrible and absolute finality which was devoid of any second chance, that I had lost.

Then, unbelieveably, the spider reappeared, and ran directly across the mattress towards me.

Now, a normal person might think “What was under that mattress that made the spider flee back up onto the top and run directly at me?” or “What? It is attacking!”

But instead, my two thoughts were “I must eradicate that thing with predjudice!” (because I knew I would not get another chance) and “How can I kill a spider that big without squishing green, gooey spider guts all over my clean bedsheets?”

I calculated that swiping it at an oblique to lateral angle would launch it off the bed and onto the floor, where I had a chance to kill it if it were stunned or disoriented for even a second, so without even a split second of delay, I launched myself at it with my swooping cupped hand hopefully throwing it into the air against the wall, and not smearing it in a long, gooey greenish yellow streak with pieces of spider legs mixed in. Worse...smearing yellow spider guts on my hand.

In a flash, I visualized seeing the guts smeared on the heel of my hand, then with smoke streaming off into the air, the spider guts begin to eat through my flesh until it hits my fifth metacarpal, which slows the flesh melting process down temporarily. Kind of the like the Alien’s guts in the movie “Aliens” that eats through the steel deck of the spaceship.

But it didn’t and there that spider was, disoriented, but only for moment, then began stumbling madly back towards the bed to try to disappear under it. I slammed my hand to the floor in front of it, blocking its way, so at a full run, it changed direction. So I thrust my hand to the carpet in front of it, and again, it changed direction, still trying to reach the dark safety under the bed.

All the while (now it is probably only about five or six seconds since I first saw the creature) I am casting about for something-ANYTHING (except my bare hand) to crush the thing. I spied a decorative bowl next to the bed that was full of a jumble of Mah Jong tiles, so I grabbed on, and was finally able to flatten the damn thing.

Granted the innard-laden tile had to be thrown away in a secure trash receptacle along with more paper towel sections than were rationally necessary for removing the guts from the carpet, but...it was dead. I could put my head back on the pillow and sleep.

You can probably tell-I hate spiders!