Arachnophobia

At first glance, this simply looks like a dirty sink with two dirty bowls. While that assessment would be correct (I wasn't home all weekend and have yet to tackle the kitchen clean-up, so no judging, please!) a closer look will reveal the cause of a near-death experience for yours truly.

In the top bowl, the black "spot" is actually a huge hairy black, jumping and swimming spider. When I first saw it, the spider was on my kitchen window sill above the sink. I of course had a major panic attack (I was on the phone with a friend) and then went to get the fly swatter. As with any spider, but especially one of this magnitude, I did not take my eyes off the offensive arachnid.

Now the problem with the spider was two-fold. First, it was perched on the ledge of my window sill in such a position as to make it impossible to render a single death blow because the surface was not flat. This is a problem because if I hit the spider, but did not kill it, the likelihood of it scuttling away, madder than before, and hiding somewhere on my kitchen counter (or maybe in my dishwashing gloves) was too high a chance to take. So I watched and waited and contemplated my next move. Second, I could not move away because I had to keep the eight-legged behemoth in my line of sight at all times.

After a 5 minute stand-off, I decided on a course of action. (I must not neglect to mention that this spider was large enough for me to clearly see his glinty green eyes from a distance of at least 4 feet.) First, I went to get my camera, because I knew I was going to have to add this to my blog. Next, I got ready to reach for the lysol spray, a risky endeavor in and of itself as it meant getting too close for comfort to the spider. I planned on stunning it with the lysol and then beating the crud out of it as it staggered around, blinded. But alas, as I have long maintained, spiders are crafty and wicked little creatures and as I held the camera up (from a safe 4 feet away) the angry arachnid JUMPED toward me at least 2 feet in the blink of an eye. All I saw was a flash of black and then I heard a little splash. The dang thing had landed in the bowl of water in the sink.

Now, normally, this would have been a victory for me, as I would merely have waited for it to drown, but as I mentioned, this spider had skills. It could swim. It didn't even struggle to stay afloat or alive. It simply floated in the water and stared at me. So, after catching my breath from my near-death experience, (that would be the spider flying at me at break-neak speed, as I clearly was the intended target and not the bowl of water) I decided to proceed with my original plan of spraying it with lysol.

Well, while I think the lysol did have a negative effect, it also created a problem. The spider was then hidden beneath a layer of toxic bubbles. Occasionally, I could see it's little hairy legs kicking and swimming beneath a break in the bubbles.

But in the end, I think the lysol did him in. Either that or he couldn't swim as well as it appeared. When all had been still for some time, I poked the fly swatter into the water (standing back as far as possible while doing so) and tried to scoop the spider out into the sink. Once I did, I smashed it to smithereens, just in case it would somehow survive the garbage disposal. I take no prisoners and no chances with eight legged monsters.

Despite my ultimate victory, I will undoubtedly still have a nightmare involving spiders this evening. I think it's part of their final revenge. Nasty beasts.