Return of the Arachnid

"It's baaaaack" was Woowoo Charly's sardonic cry when she flipped on the bathroom light last night, at which point I left the computer and hastened to see.

"That's not so big" I said, pointing to one of our regular old quarter sized eight leggers.

"Not that one," Charly replied, THAT one."

It was on a side wall, over by the towel rack. It looked like a fake spider you'd buy at a novelty shop. Its body was about the size of a walnut and its legs were at least two inches long. This was not the one I'd seen two nights ago. This was that one's big brother pumped up on steroids.

"Holy shit!" I said, or something equally as elegant.

"I told you" said my wife. "Now what do we do?"

I thought a second about swatting it, but rejected the idea immediately. That might just piss it off. Even if it worked, it would leave a splotch on the wall that would be really nasty. No, there was only one thing to do. Leave the room, barricade the door and never go in there again.

"We can't do that" said Charly sagely. We need the bathroom.

Jeez, I thought, why can't women just go outside on the ground like we do?

"All right, all right" I said. "I'll catch it."

And I did. I went downstairs and got a Tupperware container that had a circumference large enough to contain the whole spider. I returned to the loo and went into Steve Irwin mode. "Krikey Mate, when trapping a deadly spoydah of this soyz, you don't want to be bitten and you don't want to hurt the animal." (I miss that guy.) Mostly I didn't want to be bitten. I very rapidly, adrenaline rapidly, slammed the container over the spider. Alrighty then! I now had an angry spider pinned against the wall. What next? My plan was to slide the Tupperware top onto the container by just lifting it, the container, away from the the wall a tiny bit. The spider was not taking this laying down. I could actually feel it pushing against the plastic. It was quite frantic. Nevertheless, the bold warrior that lives inside my placid, scholarly demeanor (yeah right) stuck to the plan and achieved the entrapment. Frank Buck Bring 'Em Back Alive eat your heart out. (You gotta be really old to know that reference.)

I took the spider out into the yard and released it, because, you know, that's what Kira said I should do. I can hear her now. "Go, run free, noble spider. Mate, have babies, live a happy life. Do yoga."

After that I went back upstairs and killed the little one that was still on the wall.