a tale of james the spider
So last night I was watching Good Will Hunting for the second time, as it is wildly overdue and is probably going back soon, and it's such a good movie. So I was curled up in my armchair with a glass of coke and a blanket, enjoying my movie, and it ended so I got up and went over to the computer to see if Irene the Itinerant had emailed me yet. I hate waiting for people I care about to email me. It makes me tense.
I turn around and there is this MONSTER of a spider (we'll call him james) staring at me across the carpet.
None of the following will make sense unless you understand how big this spider is. This spider is the size of a small mouse. This spider is about 1.5 inches across and stands a good inch off the ground. This spider is like a little predator. I wouldn't put it past him to be carnivorous. I would expect him to spin webs like fishnets.
We'll never know exactly what the hell james thought he was doing trekking across my basement floor - where he was going, how he got in, wether or not he has siblings. It's an enigma. Anyways, one of his beady little eight eyes must have caught sight of me, and we froze and stared each other down. Technically I should have won because i was bigger, but then again james does have a lot more legs than I do. Finally I ended the staredown by reaching firmly, bravely, for the...
..Phone.
And I called my friend jean, who lives a short five-minute drive away, to come kill the big scary spider.
"Jean? Are you scared of spiders?"
"kind of...."
"Oh. Um, is your brother scared of spiders?"
"No...."
"Is he home? Can he come kill a spider for me?"
"You want my brother to go over there and kill a spider for you? Can't you just use a shoe?"
"A shoe? A shoe?! Jean, this spider is huge. He will steal the shoe, and wear it!"
"what about bug spray?"
"...Bug spray. You want me to kill it with bug spray. Jean, I don't think that's going to work.. Gaahhh!!!"
"what?"
"I lost him! He's gone!"
James had made a run for it like the brave little freak of nature he was.
"He's gone?"
"He's really gone! ok i'm going to put you on hold and go upstairs.."
i put the phone on hold and then I realized that now I was more trapped than ever. I didn't know where james was. All I knew was he was probably still somewhere in the vicinity of the stairs and I really didn't want to get close to him. Little monster. So I picked up the phone again.
"Wait, I can't leave, I don't know where he is. Gaahhhh!!! I found him."
James' desperate run had ended roughly six inches from his original position. I just couldn't see him around the chair.
In the end I wheedled jean into coming and killing the spider for me. I didn't want to leave him alone to make his escape while i opened the door for her, so i told her where the spare key was, and hung up. Then I turned to james and we settled into comfortable positions to wait. It's trippy staring at a spider. When I stood up, his long spindly legs blended into the carpet and he just looked like a troublesome stain. I thought he was morphing into the carpet, or turning invisible, like a chameleon.
After some time I thought i could see him getting a little edgy, shifting arounda bit, calculating his odds, getting ready to make a run for it. I braced myself.
Finally he started running and i screamed, the scariest thing about spiders is the way they move. Like little machines, perfectly coordinated and efficient, somehow choreographing the movement of four pairs of legs. Like little super-intelligent robots, but they have little insect minds and little insect fangs and little insect eyes. Who really needs eight eyes? Come on. And with all that, they still have no recognizable faces! I think I could get used to them if they had normal faces, with two eyes and a nose and a mouth, like the rest of creation. Then they would have something in common with chipmunks and cats and I think i could deal with that. But NO.
James was running at an angle towards me, but i wasn't his destination. No, he had decided to head under the armchair. MY armchair. I waited for him to come out on the other side, but what I wasn't expecting was to see him come out on the side closest to me. Crafty little beast. He was peeking at me from under the chair. I moved a bit so that he was no longer between me and the stairs and we waited for a bit longer. He made another run for it, this time to the computer desk. i screamed again but moved to where i could see him, valiantly battling hordes of dust bunnies as he fought his way past the monitor to the computer cable maze. I was getting pissed by now, the little bugger probably thought he was getting away but he WASN'T. He made his way over the cables in true spider fashion (SO creepy to watch) like a hummer, or something. Watching spiders climb over stuff is even scarier than watching them run. Spiders are like little tanks - little octopod faceless insectile tanks - yet there's something delicate about them. But James had too many angles and edges to be graceful. He was almost military. He was making his was towards a corner, so I pulled the desk away and stomped my feet to let him know i was there. He froze. I don't think he knew what to make of me. I must have been like this huge tower, and I moved, yet i hadn't done anything to hurt him. In fact I didn't seem to want to get too close to him. The only thing i did was make startling noises when he moved.
I kept stomping every so often to keep him unsure of himself. By this time I was sweating with fear, I really am scared of spiders. [When the james debacle was over, i stood in front of my lamp in my room for at least two minutes, unable to reach underneath to turn it on for fear of a spider hiding in the lampshade]. But I couldn't run away because then not only would there be a monster spider in my house, but i wouldn't know where the monster spider was lurking. Around this time jean got here. I introduced her to james (we didn't give him a name at that point, but he really was big enough to deserve one. And a postal code.) She had brought her flipflops, which clearly weren't going to cut it as james would probably think they were surfboards. The only thing i could see heavy enough was the dictionary on the shelf, so i passed it to her and she dropped it on him and squished him. Then she informed me there were spider bits all over my dictionary, which is enough to turn me off poor Webster for life. Webster.com is going to replace him. We did some cleanup, a short funeral (kidding) and jean, my knight in a red t-shirt, my hero, left me to crouch on the stairs for the rest of the night, wide-eyed; compulsively brushing the back of my neck and arms as my long hair brushing against me felt like spiders, regularly inspecting every inch of my immediate surroundings for little jameses. I was kind of worried that his family in the basement would form a posse and come looking for me. Maybe james was the youngest in his family, that would mean there were then at least two (parent) spiders who were presumably BIGGER and considerably more bad-tempered. So i asked my dad when he came home and obligingly killed three small spiders that i found, if he thought there were any more spiders like james in the house, and he said no, spiders are kind of loners. It makes me feel better so i'm not going to question it, but it is kind of sad. Poor james. He died alone.
Hopefully.
posted by toria at 3:19 AM
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