I Don't Like Spiders

D and Al were laughing at me today. I wish I could say it was WITH me, but alas, it was AT me. It started out all innocently enough, as most things do, really.

You see, it was mid morning, and D and I decided to go for a swim. Our pre-swim routine is to take the long handled garbage-collecting-net-thing and skim it around the surface of the water, collecting debris: flower petals, flies, wasps, etc.

It was my turn this morning, since after a hearty breakfast of pancakes and orange juice, he took out the garbage and I figured it was the least I could do. Well, as I was skimming the garbage-collecting-net-thing along the surface of the water, I spied a spider a-float. And as I neared him, he leapt (yes LEAPT) onto the side of the pool wall.

Being the spider-fearing fanatic that I am, I jumped backward and nearly lost my footing which would have seen me fall ass-backward into the pool had I not regained my balance. It was smallish, probably the size of a quarter, and instantly I thought: you are probably poisonous and thus, I must kill you.

O, wouldn't that have been brave of me?

But no... You see, I couldn't kill it, try how I might. I kept trying to flick it back in the water, and as soon as the spider hit the water, he would LEAP right back out and onto the side of the pool. I even called D over to see my lame attempt at assassinating this vile creature, and he watched in amusement as the spider continued to leap to safety, despite my vainest efforts at drowning it.

Eventually I got it far enough into the pool that it could not longer leap to the safe edge of the pool, but then...THEN it swam! Yes it swam! All the way to the other side of the pool!

Given the size of the spider in comparison to the length of the pool, I'm sure it's the equivalent of swimming the english channel. Except the spider showed no signs of slowing down - ever.

D started to tell me to leave it alone, even using a pleading voice as though that might actually stop me from my task. I was nonplussed however, and declared that since we're in Arizona, this spider might very well be poisonous if not deadly and we certainly didn't want it alive incase it ate the dog, or the child of the friends we are staying with.

And I then shouted: "Kill it! Kill it!"

"You want me to kill it?" he asks.

"Yes."

"You want me to take life?"

"Yes!"

He heaves a great sigh, and grabs the garbage-collecting-net-thingy and proceeds to place it ontop of the arachnid, submerging it. We assumed it wouldn't be very long before it died.

We were very, very wrong.

The spider, having previously swam the entire length of the pool, now proceeded to swim UNDER WATER and away from the net. After trying to keep it on the underside of the net for about 5 minutes, D grabbed the phone and called Al at work to find out what kind of demon spawn we were actually dealing with.

I was convinced, much like the freak-creation of hummingbird moths, this creature too was biologically altered and perfectly equipped with gills of some kind.

Al told D who told me to "Smush it."

Well I would do no such thing, of course! And besides, it was in the water, sitting on the bottom of the pool, bum in the air and Al promptly wanted to know if it had a "fiddle" mark on it's head.

"How the hell would I know?" I asked, aghast that he would think I would even get so close. "I'm not getting close to it!"

This, naturally, caused much laughter from the boys.

Let me assure you, this spider is not the spiders of yore - this spider WOULD NOT DROWN. It sat on the bottom of the pool for FIFTEEN minutes (and I am so not exaggerating) before I deduced that it had to be dead by now since it was no longer moving.

"Well scoop it out," says D, still chuckling in amusement and talking with Al on the phone. "See if it has a fiddle on its head."

Grumbling, I gingerly flipped the spider in the pool enough so I could scoop it out. I was elated! The spider was rather deflated by this time and not moving at all.

"It's dead!" I proclaim and all but do an irish jig.

I place the garbage-collecting-net-thing on the ground, and grab my trusty camera, confident the spider was now deceased. I was peering ever so closely at it, but not being able to see any type of "fiddle" mark on its head or body. It's body had white stripes on it though, and very fuzzy.

Having the sort of luck I have, I inched ever closer, my camera on a very tight zoom for a close-up shot, and it TWITCHED with life. Yelping, I jumped back, careful in keeping a tight grip on my camera so as not to drop it.

"It's alive?!" D asks, his voice incredulous.

"YES IT'S ALIVE!" I shriek, watching it slowly come to life before my very eyes. I scream his name as the spider wobbles up on it's 8 legs and I spring backward onto the nearest chair. "KILL IT! KILL IT! SMUSH IT!"

And so, my hero rises from his cushiony throne, takes the nearest object which happens to be the child's tiny basketball, and drops it on the spider. We both watch as the spider is flattened in less than a second, entrails spilling everywhere. We are both content it's dead, though we are both a little chagrined by the whole ordeal.

"I can't believe you're from Australia, where you have some of the deadliest spiders in the world, and you're afraid of that little one," says D, sitting back in his cushiony throne, wiggling his feet for me to massage them.

I slide across from him, taking his foot in my lap and shrug. "I don't like spiders, regardless of where I'm from."

True story.