On Spiders

I. Don't. Like. Spiders.

Not at all. Yes, I know they eat certain bugs that are pesky to humans and plants, so one could argue that spiders are worthwhile creatures and we need them blah blah blah. I'm not necessarily disagreeing with that, but I do think there is a time and a place for spiders to exist. The time would be whenever I can't see them. The place would be wherever I'm not. And preferably never in my home.

Story time. I was driving to work today. Driving on the freeway at... just a little bit over the speed limit. Halfway to my destination, I happened to notice a spider was hitching a ride with me to work. This bothered me more than just a little. And it wasn't just because he didn't ask for a ride and he wasn't pitching in for gas. No, it bothered me because he was hanging out on the dashboard right in front of me.

Here's the thing with spiders. When there's a spider hanging out with me wherever I am, the anxiety that I feel is basically that I don't know when it's going to move, where it will go, and what it will do when it gets there.

So, this spider on the dashboard in front of me. Was it going to just sit there? Likely not. It probably knew I was afraid of it, so I bet it was just waiting--building up the suspense before it pounced. Was it going to creepily crawl across the dashboard? Possibly. But when? And my worst fear: Was it going to let out its sticky, invisible web stuff and just glide down and pick a spot in my lap? Please, no.

Remember how I was driving? It's not easy to stay focused on the road when you're more concerned that a spider is about to perch on your lap like you're about to read it a bedtime story. So I glanced at the spider frequently enough to see it let out its sticky, invisible web stuff and slowly start to float downwards. Oh no. But it was just teasing me and started to climb back up. Well, I wasn't about to let that happen again! So, I took in all the air I could hold in my lungs and blew that spider to the other side of the dashboard, just as if I was blowing out all the candles on my birthday cake and Loveduck's birthday cake at the same time. (That's 42 candles... So I blew pretty hard...)

That spider must have realized he'd made a big mistake by not chipping in for the gas, cause he stayed far away from me for the rest of the drive!