Yes, I am a Girl

Anyone who knows me, and 82-percent of the people who have met me, even in passing, know that I am completely incapacitated by, and irrational in, my fear of spiders. I'm constantly looking for that little scuttle in the corner of my eye, and I do a thorough check of my bedroom every night before going to bed. I also list not having hairs tickle the backs of your arms in that may-actually-be-spider-legs kind of way as a perk of having hair shorter than any of the Hanson brothers'.

Just looking at pictures of spiders makes my heart make the jump to hyperspace. Even this makes me a little skin-crawly:
Mostly because it's a spider with a child's face and hands, while still retaining its original spider face and spindly legs. Or maybe because it's a spider with another spider attached to its belly. Or maybe the fact that the antennae on top are not correct, as spiders do not have antennae. They do, however, have these icky pincher things on their mouths that they use to bite you, and so I imagine those pom pom-topped antennae as arachnid jaws of death that will certainly take a bite out of my plump flesh from under my sheets the second I slip my toesies into bed. Normally, I pull the sheets all the way back to check my bed, but it is inevitable that on the one night I do not do so, this spider-child will be hunched in the folds and will most certainly devour at least a tiny chunk of my being.

Much to my terror, a certain giant, cavernous web has been building up above the exterior door frame at my parents' house. I have never seen the spider, but the evidence of one being there is giant and cavernous.

Last night, I strapped on my courage and decided to do something about it. While watering my mom's flowers, I turned the hose up all the way and took aim at the dreary spot. I flooded it for a good five minutes, completely destroying all shred of web, but never saw a spider get drowned out, which was the satisfaction I was looking for.

Unsatisfied and dappled with hose-water, I realized that I had to go through that very door to get back in the house.

After staring at the door for ten minutes, eyeing the door frame for the tiny wriggle of spider legs splaying over the edge that I was sure I would see any second, I decided I better make an Indiana Jones go at it and dash past the danger to safety.

The second I started for the door, however, I imagined nothing else but a disgruntled spider dropping on my head the second I ran under his water-soaked perch.

And then I was pushing the door open hard enough for it to rebound from the stopper and waver on its hinges, leaping through with a shuddering gag, almost there, and

PLOP

right on top of my head, the fluid measurement of eight wiry legs and a grotesque, furry body's worth of water hit me. Can you say cardiac arrest? I would have had I had the non-aspirated with fear breath to even sigh it. Instead, my mind was registering the sudden spike in blood pressure that resulted from the water that had gotten between the door and the frame being released onto my head at the exact moment I flung myself through the doorway.

The return of rational thought calmed me just long enough for my non-rational side to kick in again and I started frantically pulling at my hair, ripping it out of a ponytail in the most painful way possible, feeling for the wriggly little body that I knew may very well have come down on top of my head WITH the gush of water. I wasn't sure which was worse, knowing there may be a spider in my hair, or finding out that there was in fact a spider in my hair by planting a finger on top of the sopping, quivering thing.

Nearly convinced that there was nothing in my hair to find but clumps of wet hair, I felt the crawling start at my hairline and quickly descend down the goosebumping flesh of my back. I began ripping close off just as my cat had discovered I came home and was beginning to wind herself between my feet nonchalantly.

Coming to the end of the story, it was a droplet of water that took a shortcut below my shirt and down my back, not a spider. The experience made me think, however, that water must have a practical joke inclined sense of humor.

When I left for work this morning, a new sticky tunnel of grey-ish webs had been formed above the door.