The Scream Heard 'Round the World...

...or, at the very least, our little part of no-where-in-particular-Maine.

I was snuggling in bed with the Little Imp this morning when I hear a super-sonic blood-curdling scream from downstairs, followed by a hair-curling shriek that could only mean one thing...there was wildlife of some sort in Meg's room.

I'm willing to admit my own cowardice, lets just get that straight, up front.  So, from the safety of the top of the stairs, after making sure the baby-gate was closed and latched (I mean hey, I wouldn't want whatever was down there to come and get me either, I was, after all, protecting a two year old, two cats and a dog!  The teenager downstairs had a veritable arsenal of stink-pretties and other assorted sprays and potions that she could have used to fend whatever it was, off, until she herself could reach safety...) I called down to her, asking what all the commotion was about so early in the morning?  To which she replied, in hiccuped sobs...

"Ma....mamaaaaaaa it's a SPIDERRRRRRRRRR!  It's a HUGE spider!" She promptly punctuated that with another high pitched shriek.   I was quite sure that whatever arachnid dared venture into the 'pit o' doom', otherwise known as my oldest daughter's bedroom, was stunned dead after the serious of shrieks, or at the very least, permanently deaf as a result of all the noise.

I told Meg to just "kill it already...or spray something on it and then wipe it up!"   You'd have thought, by suggesting she use one of the two million bottles of body spray and perfume she's accumulated that I was asking her to pick the thing up with her BARE HANDS! 

I stood at the top of the stairs for another minute before shaking my head and going back into my own bedroom.  OK, so maybe I was saying a little prayer of gratitude that the good Lord had seen fit to assure this creepy crawly made sure Meg was awake and not me.  Oh believe me, I'm no lover of spiders.  No siree!  Just the same, I was very grateful. 

No sooner had I crawled back into bed to a giggling Little Imp did another serious of screams and shrieks find their way upstairs and into my ears.   By the sound of it, the spider was about to attack.  Meg was screaming and yelling about how it was the size of a tennis ball.  So I told the impish one to stay put, grabbed the camera (oh come on, did you think I wouldn't want to capture the moment for posterity?) and headed into the 'pit o' doom' to see for myself, this monster which had invaded the sanctuary of a female teenager.

This is what I saw when I walked in there - oh, I warn you, it's not a pretty sight, but then when is a teenager's bedroom anything pretty?                                                            

The spider had indeed dared to cross the line and climb onto a pair of jeans that Meg was about to put on.  She rapidly yanked them off, after doing her spider dance, and swore that she was never wearing them EVER again.  Oh the horrors!

I told her to hush up and show me where it went and then we'd deal with it.  She said it was in the general direction of "somewhere under her bed."  Brave spider.  I wouldn't ever dream of touching anything under her bed, let alone looking under there.  Frankly the thought sends fear into my very heart. 

Meg kept going on and on about how big it was, and hairy and what if it jumped out at her and that it had probably been crawling on her in the middle of the night.  At that point, I couldn't help myself and told her that it had probably laid eggs in her hair and that did she know it's a FACT that we eat at least seven spiders a year in our sleep.  OH YES IT IS!  The spider-dance then turned into something that looked like a seizure with lots of hair shaking and jumping around.  I told her it wouldn't help, the eggs are tiny and probably woven into her hair with minuscule strands of spider web.  Meg stopped dead in her tracks and asked me right then and there if I could spray her head down with Raid.  I thought it was best to tell her I was just joking about the spider-babies-in-her-hair thing (lest she actually make the poor boy who gives her a ride to school, stop at the store so she could run in and get a can of Raid) but that yes, we do eat several spiders in our sleep.   I didn't exactly score any points at that juncture.

Here she is trying to coax the spider to come out so that; "mommy could you please please PLEEEEEEASE KILL IT!?!?!?!"

There she is, safely perched upon the mound of CLEAN (grrrrrrr) clothes in her bedroom,  trying to get the hairy little beast to show itself so I could kill it.

And here my dear readers, is the nasty little denizen of Hell in all it's glory.

Behold, THE SPIDER!

It was in fact, not quite the size of a tennis ball, or even a ping pong ball.  Or really, it wasn't even as large as a grape.  It was roughly the size of a Lima bean.   I rapidly dispatched the creepy crawly, because, lets face it, I'm none too fond of them myself and I certainly didn't want it crawling on ME!  A coat hanger proved most useful.  Meg then begged me to make sure I cut it in half, so that it didn't "come back to life and crawl in her hair" because we all know that spiders that are dead but not cut in half will definitely come back to life and crawl into our hair.  I told her to hush up and I sprayed it down with something called Fresh Linen, which I think was a Bath and Body Works product.  But it could have been anything for all I know.  Meg wasn't convinced that it was dead, even though it had been eviscerated by a coat hanger (for the love of Pete, little spider legs and bits were all over the place, it would have had no way to crawl into her hair!) and then drowned in stink-pretty stuff. 

I told Meg to clean it up and flush it.  So what does she do?  She brings me a Clorox wipe and tells me to do it and to make sure it's dead.  So I pick the spider up, bits and all, give it a good squish (ewwwww, that gives me the heebie jeebies just thinking about it) and then place my ear to the wipe to see if I can detect any discernible heart beat.   Then I flushed him down the toilet.

Time of death, 7:12AM. 

Comments

[This is the day]

ROFL That was hilarious!!! Esp when we got to see the size of that spider. I love reading your description, you always crack me up, hope things are going well!

[Christina]

OMG... That just made my day! I had tears rolling off my chin, I was laughing so hard. The first picture of Meg got me!

[Term papers]

I'd have thought, by suggesting she use one of the two million bottles of body spray and perfume she's accumulated that You was asking her to pick the thing up with her Bare Hands.

[Pauly Shore Addict]

The itsy bitsy spider went up the water spout! Ah-up went the spider! Down came the rain! Eddie, down came the rain!