I’m sure you are either doing one of two things right now:

1- Already laughing, because you take joy from me being tortured by 8 legged creatures in my house.

2- Sighing, because you’re thinking I’m a big baby and I should of learned to deal with it by now.

Well, sit down and shut up. Here’s the latest installment.

Last night, I was getting ready for bed. Tom asked for his legs to be situated. I grab a pillow from the floor and set it on the bed.

The next thing I know, there’s a spider. A decent sized spider. Roughly quarter sized or larger.

The spider is ON TOM!

Of course, I instantly freak out, which concerns Tom – who did not see the spider land on him.

He quickly realized from my reaction that it was a spider… and by following my eyes, knew that it was on him.

“Kill it! Kill it!” He hollers at me.

I hesitate for a moment, then take the sheet that’s laying on Tom and shake the spider off of the bed.

Of course, now the rascal is free on the floor. But, the spider is shocked from the bungee jump he just took without the cord attached to him.

I quickly grab a shoe and give ‘em a good solid swat.

And the spider flippin’ RUNS AWAY!

OMG!

I see him scurry under my bed.

I consider leaving him alone. You know, if you can’t see it, it can’t hurt you?

Right.

I finally had to move the bed around and corner the spider… which makes it near impossible to smash him with the shoe if he’s in a corner.

I cram my shoe into the corner and do the ‘twist him into the baseboard’ maneuver.

Yeah, he’s dead.

I don’t like spiders.

Tom’s mom and sister, Trish, pull up in the driveway last night. We weren’t expecting the visit, but always enjoy the time we get to spend with them.

As they’re getting out of the car, I notice they have their hands full. I’m assuming whatever they’ve brought is for Tom, of course. But I was wrong, mostly.

(I’ll show you Tom’s mother and sister handed me at the bottom of this post.)

Tom’s sister did bring Tom a DVD. She saw this guy on Oprah, I think, and was really impressed with his story. She wanted to share it with Tom. Tom was making jokes through the whole DVD, but I think he got the message.

In other news, a couple of our friends are moving to the Virgin Islands in November. They decided to get two web cameras to keep in contact with friends and family. After purchasing their cameras and getting them set up, they called us because we’re one of the few people they know that already had cameras.

Neither Tom’s or my web cam are top of the line by any means (mine was so grainy that I looked like I was in a blizzard, and Tom’s sound worked for 30 seconds until the recipient was deafened by a outrageous static).

We had purposely bought cheap ones since we were only going to play with them. (You know, like while Tom was in the living room, we’d have the cameras on so we could see each other…. lame stuff like that.)

So, we all get online and bog down the sad satellite Internet that Tom and I have, playing with our web cameras. We immediately decide that if we’re going to use these things to talk to our friends in the Virgin Islands, we better get a decent quality camera quickly.

Which we’ve done. My credit card company really likes me. I’m horrible, I know.

But, heck, our web cams look pretty darn good.

Okay, okay…

I’m done with all that.

And, I know y’all were hanging in there to see what Tom’s sister and mother brought me.

So, here ya go.

a cute little beanie baby SPIDER!

a cute Halloween decoration stuffed SPIDER!

and, the one that gave me the most heeby jeebies (and just because this post is outrageously long anyhow, I will point out that heeby jeebies is not recognized in spell check), the SPIDER book!!

With pictures of big hairy spiders in it!

Okay, don’t get me wrong. The stuffed animals are cute and all… but the book? I could of gone without the book….

I see, I see.

Y’all want proof.

You want evidence.

You’re a ‘I’ll believe it when I see it‘ crowd…

Y’all don’t believe my pedicured pink toenailed spider bit, huh?

Why would I lie to all of you… my faithful readers?

Well, check it out.

Okay – ya’ll have read about my previous issues with spiders in my house.

I’m not talking your average house spider.

I’m talking about spiders so large they could easily open the front door of the house on their own!

(Yes, call me a drama queen… its alright. I’m waiting for it.)

The scariest part seems that looks like it will be an ongoing dilemma in my household!

I should of known to ask the real estate agent if there were any known man-eating spiders on the property before closing on this house. But, you know, that’s something that slipped my mind, for some reason. I will know to ask if ever I buy another house, I tell you!

Last night, I encountered, two (not one, but two) huge, ugly, woman-eating, hairy, freshly pedicured with brightly painted pink toenails, SPIDERS.

Hm, that was a little unbelievable, huh?

Alright. Huge and ugly are accurate. The rest I could of sworn I saw… but, maybe my mind is playing a couple tricks on me.

I understand the importance of spiders on this earth. I know they definitely help keep down the other dreaded bug population in this household. And, thank God for that, because I don’t need any more bugs in this house, either.

But, c’mon. House spiders are supposed to be small. Like, an inch or less in full diameter.

These spiders are so large, I’m afraid I’ll wake up one morning, spun into a spider web and awaiting my inevitable death!

Junior is here!

And, he’s not so junior, if you ask me.

He’s running around in my bedroom, right now!

I think he’s coming after me to get revenge for taking his father’s life.

I’m sitting here, with my shoes on and my pajama pants pushed up to my knees (to avoid it crawling up my leg, I guess?), while I continuously scan the floor.

I tried to get Paul to take care of the problem, but by the time we made it back into the bedroom, Junior had taken off!

I’m certain he’s going to get me in my sleep… its driving me insane.

Its not like I want to go looking for him, but I’d really rather he be dead before I decide to get into bed.

This has got to stop.

Where are they coming from?

Why must they torture me?

And, why do they hide so well when I go for help?

I feel like I’ve met my match. Its like this house knows my weaknesses and is learning to use them against me!

Tom’s mom decided I needed these for my birthday!

Isn’t that just so sweet?

I have to say, my stomach kind of turned a little as I ate one.

Of course, she gave me these because of Movie Night.

On the up side, though, Rudy was on again the other night. And, amazingly, we caught it about 5 minutes before the part I missed.

So, I turn it on and instantly I had to pick up my feet and put them on the bed.

I told Tom I may never be able to watch that movie with my feet on the floor again.

And, the ridiculous part was that I had missed 15 minutes of the movie due to the little episode I had the other night.

I definately gave Tom crap for allowing me to carry on for 15 minutes about that spider.

Of course, if I see another spider of that magnitude again, I’ll know I’ll spend at least 15 minutes reacting to it from now on.

Good to know.

Of course, sometimes when we’re up so late at night, we struggle to find something worth watching on TV.

I happened to stumble upon the movie Rudy, though, and I was really excited! I haven’t seen Rudy, yet have heard that it was a great movie.

I asked Tom if he had seen it. He hadn’t either.

So, we settle in and start the movie.

All is going well. We’re watching Rudy make his way into Notre Dame, and get beaten up by the football team. Touching stuff – right? Yada yada yada.

Then, suddenly, I see this large shadow run quickly across my bedroom floor.

Of course, I instantly panic.

I search the ground, fearfully, trying to figure out what in the world that shadow came from.

Then I see it.

THIS IS NOT EVEN ZOOMED!!! (Okay, maybe a smidge – but not much, I swear!!)

I am seriously freaking out. (Thinking about it now is giving me the heeby jeebies!)

I jump from my chair to the bed to grab my cell phone (not to call 911, although I briefly thought about it). I try to take a picture of it with my phone for Tom to see. Of course, its so dark in the room that the flash won’t hardly pierce the dark.

So, I jump back onto the bed and grab my real camera.

And, I take this photo.

And I show Tom.

And he says, “Well, its just a wolf spider. Kill it if you’re afraid of it.”

(can you sense the panic here?)

Uh?! Did he say, “just“, like it wasn’t a big deal? And he suggests I kill it?

Its SO FRICKIN‘ large that I’m sure when it gets smashed it will explode spider guts all over the bedroom and on the ceiling!

I work myself up to the point of sweating and almost giving myself a near panic attack. Seriously. (Stupid, I know.)

I told Tom if there were ever a time to start walking, this would be the time!

Or, if we could just control a muscle spasm enough to aim his foot at this monsterous creature, that would be ideal!

All I can think is that this spider is going to crawl into my mouth while I’m asleep and I’m going to choke to death on it!!

It must die. And, I must be the one to do it.

So, finally… I work up the courage to swat it with a fly swatter. It curls up into a ball and doesn’t move.

I nudge it a little, to make sure its not playing possum (while Tom is telling me that spiders do not play possum). I scoop it up and put it in the trash can.

Phew! Choking hazard removed.

Disaster averted.

Life altering event over.

Peace and safety resumes in the world.

Whatever.

After I get myself slightly settled down, I look back at the TV just in time to see Rudy’s team mates turning in their uniforms.

I missed the ‘most moving’ part of the frickin‘ movie!!

Damn it.