A Story About a Spider and Me Part II

Part II

As you already know the heroic battle between this spider and I, and I am sure you can guess it didn't end there.

I get Lily her pretties, that's what we call her collar, she starts jumping around eager to go roam around outside while I impatiently wait for her to "go potty one last time." She sits very still smiling at me while I put the collar on and attach the leash. (Yes she smiles.) As soon as she hears that click of the leash around her collar she drags me to the front door. In the split second I open the door, Lily bolts, and the spider, yes the same one, jumps down from my door right in my path. That spider was waiting for me! He knew eventually I would have to open that door. This spider had a mind of its own.

It was too late I already stepped, jumped back and choked Lily. Now I am freaking out at my door, once again wide open. I am sure there is one nosy neighbor who thinks I am completely insane. I stepped just lightly enough on the spider that a.) It killed him and b.) He wasn't squished. I am now trying to decide what to do. Do I just step over him and continue my way? Do I pick it up and dispose of it? No I can barely vacuum a spider let alone pick one up. I can't get my vacuum it's past quiet time.

Lily being impatient runs back in to see what I am distressed about. She sees the spider laying there and goes to eat it. I can't let her do that! I yanked her away and slowly moved closer, but I have seen a few scary movies in my time. This is precisely when the bad guy pretends to be dead, and goes for the kill when you start celebrating the defeat. Keeping an eye on him I slowly step over the carcass. The step was more of a leap trying to keep as far away as possible if he did decide to come back to life and attack.

This point in time I didn't care if Lily wanted to stay out all night. I didn't want to go back and face this spider. What if other spiders come to get him, have a funeral of sorts? What if he waited for me to leave to go hide somewhere in the house? Now I wanted to go back after that thought. To make sure he doesn't disappear. We start to head back, I left the front door wide open.

(My imagination goes wild when I am scared or nervous. I start thinking of all the possibilities and how I would react if that happened. Play it all out in my head before anything happens. Being what seems like prepared helps me cope with the fears.)

What if he went and got an army ready because I tried to slam him in the door? What if they ran in when I walked away? Those thoughts made me shudder and the goose bumps appeared again. We made it to the door, he was still there. Being a little relieved I jumped over him again and shut the door.

Lily and I stared at the spider corpse trying to figure out what to do. He was all curled up except for one leg was stretched out. I think I stepped on that one so it was broken and wouldn't curl under again. This leg was about an inch long if you were to stretch it out straight. I slowly inch closer to get a better look, he looks like a daddy long legs just meaner. A hybrid if you will. (I have been watching/reading too many vampire and werewolf stories.)

Yawning, I decide to leave him there hoping in a twisted way that he will still be there in the morning. I will deal with him then. I climb into my bed like a little kid scared of the monsters in the closet.

"Oh nice," I think to myself "spiders in the closet with all my clothes." I pull the covers over my head cringing at the idea of spiders being in my bed. Needless to say I didn't sleep much that night. Every time Lily put her cold nose up to my skin I would wake up startled. I might have gotten 2 hours of good sleep. When my alarm finally went off I was happy I survived the night. No spider army snuck in my room and ambushed me. I didn't want to leave my bed; it was my sanctuary for the night.

I finally dragged my self out of bed and slowly crept into my closet and stumbling over my own feet. I was exhausted, I had one hour to get two people ready for the long day, 8.75 hours to be exact. I rummaged through everything and finally found an outfit to wear. I threw it on my bed remembering I left the dead spider, I had to see if he was still there. I open Alex's bedroom door telling him he needed to start thinking about getting up. My voice trailed off as I walked further away from him and closer to the crime scene.

I peek around the corner to see if there was still a decomposing spider laying there. He was still there, no one came to collect him. That means they didn't know their comrade was dead. They couldn't avenge his death if they didn't know he was dead to begin with. I took a deep breathe and continued to get ready for the day, despite being very jumpy and edgy, being paranoid takes a toll on your body.

I finally make it to work even more exhausted and cold. I was freezing! It was 100 degrees outside and I am shivering. Each shiver made each muscle ache. How was I going to last eight hours and forty-five minutes? I started recounting my ordeal to some friends. Then my mom sent me a text needing to be picked up during my lunch hour. I was excited to tell her my battle and show her my agony, she would make me feel better.

Lunch finally came around I was happy to go be out in the sun, and happy to have my mom around. We went and had lunch at Fazoli's and I told her my dramatic tale. She wanted to see this spider corpse that was hopefully still in my house by the front door. He was proof that it truly happened. We make it to my humble abode and I open the door and step back. He was still there, but now I had someone who would get rid of him for me.

She studied him and picked him up, with her bare hands!

(Disgusting! Gross! Oh My No Way!)

I jumped back a lot farther and started doing that brush off my body squirm. Now that nosy neighbor is probably wondering what the hell is up with my front door.

"I've never seen anything like it," she says.

"I told you it was freaky! Now put it down that's disgusting!"

"Hmm I will look on the internet for you and see if I can figure out what it is," as she throws the evidence into the bushes.

We then start talking some more about it, and I tell her a friend will be coming to spray my apartment for spiders later that day. She decides that Lily needs to play with her pups. (I know what does this really have to do with anything... and how much longer will this story go on…) So we grab Lily and start getting her ready to leave again.

"What's that on your floor?" She asks bending closer. "Turn on a light."

I turned on a few lights and even opened the blinds so we would have a brighter look.

"That is not another one is it?" my voice trembled.

"Yes is it, grab your dog." She commanded.

"Is it even alive?"

"Yes, get your dog!"

I grab Lily and we run across the room to climb up on a chair. You know just in case it decides to make a run for it. This spider was all curled up sitting in the middle of my dining room. With its legs under him like he was dead, disguised once again too well on my carpet. I am almost sure he was pretending to be dead while the thought out his next plans of attack. Sleeping on ideas if you will, spiders sleep don't they?

My mom goes to grab some tissues from the bathroom, while Lily and I are still glaring at the spider ball. He wasn't going anywhere on our watch! She comes back and throws the handful of tissues on the spider. She picks up the spider with the tissues, he's now wriggling around inside the tissues in her hand. She starts walking towards me, and let me remind you I already went my close enough distance. I start freaking out and trying to back away but I can't its wall behind me.

** Warning this next part is nasty! **

She looks at the terror in my eyes realizing that I didn't want her to come any closer. She looks at her hand; she was seriously contemplating on what to do next. She takes her other hand and squeezes her hand really tight around the spider. Out from her hands omits the loudest cracking, crunching, breaking noise I have ever heard.

"Eww! He just cracked in my hand," she tells me.

"I know! I heard! That's so gross! Get rid of it! Flush it down the toilet!"

She goes and flushes the spider down the toilet; I am now freaking out again doing the squirming dance, hearing the popping noise again and again in my head. She comes back and laughs at me and my dance. She grabs Lily from me and heads to the front door. I take her home, she was now on a quest to solve the spider mystery!

I get back to work now telling my co-workers on the continuing breaking story. She starts to text me saying she does think it is a Hobo Spider as well. She tells me we need to look and see if it has the eyes. Apparently these Hobo's have eyes, I don't know I haven't looked close enough at the real ones or the pictures.

I have tried doing my own type of therapy, I have always thought that if I could touch the computer screen that has a picture of a spider on it I would be able to kill and dispose of them. Well yeah that's a challenge and a half! So I gave up on tormenting myself with pictures of spiders.

I text her back saying OH NO! The first thing that came to my head was Alex. I do not want Alex living in a home infested with Hobo spiders. At this point in time I have personally seen two. Possibly three if that one is still in the box in the corner! Second thing was the disgusting email pictures that get sent around often about the spider bites. I don't want anyone to lose any limbs…

So my friend Steve shows up to my work with a bag full of bottles of spider spray. I give him my spare key to my apartment. I tell him the triumphant story of me killing the first spider, and then the scary story with the vacuum and the spider running into the box. I told him he absolutely had to go through that box completely! I didn't care how embarrassing the pictures were in the box, I needed the relief that the spider was no longer in there.

I continued to work with updates from my mother about what kind of spider she thought it could be, and from Steve telling me how many spiders he has killed already with the spray. I am finally starting to relax a little bit, or my body was giving up one of the two.

Work is finally over and I get to go home. Steve is still there spraying away, he told me the spider was still in the box and he was a fighter big time. I started to feel relieved that I will no longer be terrorized by these monsters. I rested easy that night only had one nightmare of a hobo spider climbing down his spider silk right to my face. It was a dream where I couldn’t move I was frozen watching this spider descend onto me.

A few days go by and I was starting to relax in my home again. Then one night Andrea and Shawn were over at my place working on our cake website. One ran across the carpet!

“That… that… that’s the spider! Kill it! Kill it! Oh they were supposed to be all gone!” I stuttered.

“Wow that is a big spider.” Shawn said.

Andrea and Shawn both took a good long look at it. Longer then I really wanted anyone to look at it. I was freaking out wishing they would get rid of it already. Finally Shawn got some tissue and flushed the spider.

“See I told you guys! I wasn’t joking they are huge spiders!” I complained. Shawn pulled out his handy dandy iPhone and started searching the internet.

“Yep it’s a Hobo Spider,” he said in a reassuring way.

“What! I don’t want to hear that,” I was still in denial.

“Well here look at this, it had the eye things,” explaining his reasoning’s.

“I don’t know if I want to look at it!”

I finally gave in and looked at his phone, looking back at me was the spiders that have been at war with me. Fear shot down my spine again, at that point to my knowledge my house had four of these hobo spiders.

I have always had a theory that if there is one spider there are ten more somewhere else, which is pretty logical. Possibly even more then the 1:10 ratio, but I won’t think like that. I like to think my glass is half full, not my house being half full!

Unfortunately for me this story still doesn’t end here. Luckily for you it keeps going. I know a lot of you enjoyed the first story, I just hope this one was as equally entertaining!