From Arachnophobia to Arachnodog

The long day gets even longer.......

falling asleep at well after 2am, then lying half-awake from 6am to 7am, I just wanted to go back to bed. But Bug had to get ready for school, do some classwork that she couldn't complete in class, eat breakfast and watch an episode of "Drake and Josh".

Oh yeah, and tell me how I'm the meanest mom in the world and recounting all of my failings thus far in the day. I am SO loved.

In the early afternoon, I was resting and Buddy was in the kitchen watching Spongebob. He starts whining about a big 'fiiiiiieeeeerrrrr" so I ran in looking for fire. Seeing only sunlight, I told him that the sun was shining on him, that is why he was hot.

Then he pointed to IT.

IT was the biggest, hairiest, wolf spider to EVER get into our house. It is cold in the mornings now, so they start coming in. The good for nothing cats won't kill them because they bite and must not taste good. The dogs won't kill them because the dogs are lazy and domesticated.

Buddy yells to me "kill it!"

Now I'm stuck in a conundrum. My baby is begging me to kill this scary thing, but I'm terrified of the scary thing too. My eyes well up with tears, as I pick up a shoe and approached it.

It had big pointy fang things. I backed away with a scream.

"Kill it mommy, you have to save me, kill it!"

WHAP!

I hit it spot on with my shoe and leave it hanging on the wall. slowly its guts pull away and it falls to the floor.

But I am now hiding behind my son, shaking and crying after screaming like a little girl.

"I'm not scared of spiders mommy."

Now, couldn't this announcement have been made BEFORE I had to go near the biggest damn spider in Central Ohio?

"Why didn't YOU kill it then!" I've been betrayed by my baby.

He looks up at me and says so innocently "I'm too little."

Argh! foiled by cute!

But the story does not end there, because, after all I live HERE.

Anyway, I left it on the floor...no way was I going near it again. Brutus walks in and sniffs it, but it sticks to the drool on his mouth. And, of course, being the long dust bunny that he is, he's always under my feet. So I start running away from him, crying, and he's bounding after me, dead spider hanging off of his face. I wound up on the kitchen counter, shooing him away.

If this does not seem amusing to you, think of this: Basset Hounds are short dogs, until they stand on their hind legs, then they are very tall. I was standing on my counter, Brutus dangling the dead spider every closer to my feet as I'm screaming and kicking at him. If you've never seen me, think of someone with Rosie O'Donnell's build standing on a counter crying and kicking a slobbery dog with a spider hanging off his snout.

Then Buddy saves my life by dropping a cracker on the floor. Arachnodog senses food for the taking and runs away, dropping the spider corpse back under the table, almost exactly where it fell to the ground after I killed it.

But the story of suburban terror and familial betrayal does not end there. I stagger to my office, and send a frantic e-mail to my husband. This is the reply he sends to me.

OK, I'm going to hell, but I need to 'fess up. I saw that thing this morning, but it scampered under the computer desk before I could kill it. I tried to rattle cables and the other crap down there, but the spider was so very not leaving his warm little hidey-hole.

I thought about telling you, but I decided it would be better not to. I figured if the spider showed his head again, I'd get a phone call ... 8^)

He knows that I listen to enough true crime shows while I work that I know how to kill him, make it look like a natural death, AND get away with it.

You DO NOT leave GigantoSpider both in the home AND alive, knowing that a serious arachnophobe is the only one there to protect the baby. It could have bitten me, I would have swelled up and died, then it would have eaten the boy, the dogs and all our food before moving on to the neighbors. (But he would have spared the cats, no one messes with our cats). Did he not learn ANYTHING from Bill Cosby and the Chicken Heart? Does he just not UNDERSTAND how close the Far East Suburbs came to extinction today?

I have to now go hermetically seal myself in a gas permeable body bag, smear Jello all over the floor and set fire to the couch. There is no way I can sleep tonight knowing that there may be more 8 legged freaks of nature out there, thirsty for blood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you do not know about Bill Cosby and the Chicken Heart, a) you've lived under a rock for all of your sad life, and b) go buy his comedy album "Wonderfulness". You will not be disappointed.