Thursday, October 7, 2010

The Spider and I

I'm in the habit during work days of waiting until later in the day to take a shower. This evolved into my ritual because I am incapable of waking up more than 15 minutes before I absolutely have to. I mean, I'll lay there in bed, telling myself to get up, and it's just physically impossible to move my muscles. My body's on switch is panic activated.

So that also means when I am finally sick of myself enough to shower, I do it quickly, cause it's in the middle of my work day. The way I see it, this makes me an environmentalist, as does the pile of empty toilet paper rolls building up on top of the toilet. I could explain that one to you, but then I would have to ignore your existence for the rest of my life.

Today I jumped into a very very hot shower, looked up at the ceiling, and froze. Hanging directly above my head was a medium sized reddish brown spider. I have to say medium sized because it definitely wasn't what you would call a small spider. But it wasn't a large spider either. I would feel like an idiot calling it a large spider, because one time I saw that wolf spider sitting on the shelf at the X's parents apartment, and thought it was fake Halloween spider, that's how large that motherfucker was. So this was nothing like that. The spider above my head was a Charlotte sized spider.

But I was stuck. I couldn't turn around, cause then my back would be towards it. It was directly over the spot where I usually stand under the water. I just stood there in the back of the tub, watching it. It was crawling back and forth frantically, weaving a web, which meant occasionally it would do this cute trick where it fell on the web towards me, front legs outstretched. But then it would stop, reconsider, and climb all the way back up again. Over and over again, getting further down each time. I told myself I was being ridiculous, that I was in the shower, so it would hit water way before me. But what if it saw my head as a perfect anchor? This went on for like ten minutes, me watching it, it busily not watching me. I kept expecting it to write something out for me, like "Move over" or "It's 3 o clock, how was I supposed to know you'd be showering now?"

Finally, it got too low, and I swiped at it with an empty shampoo bottle, of which there are like ten in my tub, my bathroom is just a collection of empty or used thing, like a museum to the modern girls hygienic routine, only the opposite of hygienic. I was hoping to just push it over out of the shower, since I don't like killing spiders. It feels cruel to kill predators, they're just like me after all, only better and more effective at it. Also if I kill a spider, I later have nightmares that their kin are watching and are going to come after me in my sleep. There are certain places they are not allowed to exist in my home, namely my shower and my bedroom. Otherwise, whatever little bug killer, do what you have to.

So I tried to knock it over, but I missed, and the poor little thing got wet and ran for the ceiling. It was holding its legs all funny and scrunched, I felt so bad for a moment. But then it dried itself out. And started to come back. Seriously. Towards my head. This spider was turning into my fucking cat. Push me away as many times as you want to, I love you! I need to be close to you! I was just about to kill it when it changed directions, and headed down the wall to the shower head and tile line. It crawled carefully to just the spot where the water hit the tile, stayed there for a minute, and then crawled back up safely to the corner of the wall. Cause maybe all it wanted was a drink?

And this is why I took a forty minute shower this morning, but didn't shave my legs.

6 comments:

  1. I assumed this was about me, & was sad when it wasn't.

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  2. Well, I mean, maybe it was. If you were on my shower ceiling, I would probably swat at you with a shampoo bottle too. And I would feel bad about it.

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  3. only you would have the best story about a fucking spider.

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  4. Leg hair helps with insulation when it's cold. I'm done shaving until May.

    You should put a cone around that spider's neck.

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  5. you should put a bunch of spiders around Mildred's cone! For Halloween!

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