The Spider

I was in my office rummaging through an old briefcase when a huge, black spider raced up from the bottom, looked at me, and then dove back in. I dragged the bag over to the front door and shook it. The spider fell out and scurried back into the house under the brown leather recliner. I yelled for my seven year old daughter Jade, the official bug-getter in the family. Grabbing a Hello Kitty cup (barely big enough for the spider) she raced in to help. I heaved over the large, ungainly recliner, the spider froze, Jade swooped in and the spider raced away to once again hide under the recliner. Ethan, my five year old son, heard the commotion and came down to “help”. He hopped around on the stairs screaming encouragement (and just screaming) while I screamed at him to be quiet.

For 20 minutes I wrestled the recliner, Jade chased the spider, the spider darted back and Ethan shrieked.

Finally, at one point I had the chair tilted up, the spider ran away AGAIN and I just dropped the chair in frustration. After hearing a loud crunch, followed by a thump, we froze and stared at each other in silence. Shattered pieces of the Hello Kitty cup lay underneath one leg of the recliner. The chair had smashed into the wall, making a large hole. The kids looked at me hardly believing that mom had actually lost it. I told them it was ok, it was an accident, we would get it fixed and not to worry. They were relieved it wasn’t somehow their fault but were still giving me sideways glances. Ethan and I cleaned up the plastic bits and Jade somehow managed to swoosh the spider out (I think it was exhausted). Later that evening, I noticed there was the same kind of enormous spider in my bathtub but I think I’m going to just leave it for now.