merrymuhsman

Reposting for Halloween… A past spider story that still holds true today.

I stoop down to pet a kitten circling my leg, bumping me with its tiny body. Four more kittens swarm me with purrs, head nudges, leg brushes and general belly flops . The babies love this time of night; I called it kitten cuddles.

The Siamese kitten with a heart-shaped face, brown boots and a tan creamed colored fur meows at me when I stop petting him.

“You’re so sweet,” I tell him as I stroke the side of his face. He meows a satisfied sound.

I stand up and walk toward the house. I freeze. A black spider perched legs next to the door jam, its long legs stretched out. The spider dared me to take another step toward the door. He would follow me and hide in boxes and shelves and maybe on the bag of cat food.

The horror.

“Oh hell no!” I cry, scurrying away from the door. I sprint across the dark lawn, up the deck steps and yank open the deck door. Thank the good Lord the deck door is unlocked. I slip out of my boots on my light blue area rug.

I march into the house and stand in front of my husband, scrolling through Facebook on the ipad. “There’s a spider by the garage door. I can’t go out that door. It’s about the size of a dollar coin.” I gesture with my hands in case he forgot how the size of a silver dollar.

My husband removes his glasses, sets down the ipad and smiles. “Let’s see this big spider.”

We walk out of the house together, but I hang inside the garage door.

“Where is he?” He stands near the door frame in the gloomy dark with the yard light giving him light to see. How could he not see that enormous nightmare? He was so close to the door jamb. Too close. What if the spider pounced on him?

I point out the door. “On the other side of the door jamb. To the left. Stand back a little and you will see him.”

He took a step back. “Oh that little thing?” He approaches the spider and brushes his foot down the wall. I scurry back up the steps, ready to bolt inside the house if the spider escaped. He stomps down on the ground.

“Did you get it?” My fingers curl on the doorknob.

“Yeah,” he replies, wiping his foot on the grass.

I let go of the doorknob and sit down on the step, unable to stand. Fear replaced by relief. We are safe for now.

He walks into the garage and shuts the door. “It wasn’t that big.”

My breath catches in my chest. “Excuse me?”

“It was the size of my pinkie.”

“No ,it was definitely bigger than that.” I paused, feeling my heartbeat ratchet up a notch. Were we talking about the same spider? Was there more than one?

He pointed at the nail of his pinkie finger. “His body was no bigger than my pinkie.”

“That’s how you measure the size of a spider? By the body? You have to include the legs. The legs are outstretched and they count!”

He laughed a little and pointed at his pinkie. He walked in the house and kissed my head. “Not that big.”

I sat on the steps realizing that my husband and I had vastly different ideas of spider size. Years ago, I was just a child walking in the bathroom and on the floor was a huge wolf spider. The size of a tarantula. I screamed and ran to my dad. They checked the bathroom, but there was no spider. I barely slept that night. But when I came home from school the next day, I noticed large, black legs in the wastebasket.

I’m certain my husband believes I exaggerated then. I always said it was big as my dad’s hand. I wonder how he would measure that spider.

Two days later…

My husband and I sat on the front porch on our porch swing. The valley spread out before us beneath a dark blanket of twinkling stars. A southern breeze brushed against my hair. I pulled my knee to my chest, feeling the chill across my bare legs. Harvest had begun, and the harvest was good. Today we had no equipment breakdowns.

Our conversation turned to the day’s events, what tomorrow would hold and sometimes the subject drifted to a future that seemed large with possibility.

The sort of night that you almost say is perfect, but hold back saying the word, because Karma loves to disrupt your “perfect night”.

A large black spider scurried from the shadows across the concrete porch just barely yards from my bare foot. I bit down to keep from screaming, but did not hold back the wimpy, incomprehensible sounds on someone about to lose their shit. I bolt toward the door.

I step inside, grip the door handle to keep the door shut as if a door made of glass and metal was somehow going to keep out the monster.

“Now that is a big one,” my husband said. Was there pride in his voice? A little bit of awe? I wonder how he’d measure the size of THAT one? A silver dollar body? Maybe a scrub daddy sponge?

“Kill it!” I scream. “What if it comes in the house? It’s too big to live!” I press my hands against the glass, ready to back up and shut the inner door if that thing ran toward the house. Toward me.

My husband picked up the frog garden status and placed it down on the big spider. Black legs stuck out from underneath the frog, another testament to the enormous size of the monster.

“Did you press it down?” There should have been a crunch. A loud crunch. “That thing was big enough to move the frog.” My voice had gone up two octaves My soprano-singing aunt would be proud.

My husband laughed, “It’s dead.”

“I’m not coming back out, “ I said and promptly and sat down on the couch.

To this day, we still argue over the size of a spider. Our farmer neighbor put this way. “You measure a spider by the size of its eyes. If you can see them, you run.”

Note: this was part or a series I wrote on spiders, but am reposting pieces of the story for Halloween. There hasn’t been a hard freeze in Nebraska. I’m waiting for the monsters to rise again.