Amberance and The Visitor, (a comedy in three acts)- Part I

Note: The only, and I mean ONLY reason that any of this happened is because I was dumb enough to actually laugh and enjoy Heather's story about her own run in with a spider. In the future I will take better care when tempting fate.

Act I

I stand in my dining room, staring fixedly at the laundry basket on top of my dining room table. I have my phone to my ear. Fish cheerily picks up the phone on his end and hears me say "Fish, there is a fucking *spider* In. My. Laundry basket."

Fish is 35 miles away and at work. How exactly I thought he was going to be helpful in this situation I have no freaking clue. "Uh oh," says Fish.

"Fish! What am I going to do?! It's inside my dining room!"

I love Fish. I love him because he is possessed of much logic. Unfortunately for me, logic does not help in these types of situations. "Kick it down the stairs and outside. It will come out."

"ARE YOU CRAZY?! I can't touch the laundry basket! It's IN THERE! It could GET ON ME! It's contaminated now. I'll have to throw it out." I am entirely serious when I am saying this. Under no circumstances can I put clothes that touch my body into a container that once harbored a spider. Clearly I must buy a new laundry basket. Eventually. But someone else has to get it the hell out of my house because I can't touch it.

Fish calmly tries again. "Do you have a spray bottle? Spray it with water, and it will crawl to the middle of the basket, and then you can kill it with a shoe or something."

I'm not having it. "You want me to SPRAY IT WITH SOMETHING?! And piss it off even more? No way. No. Fucking. Way. If I spray it, it will *move* more! And my shoe? I can't kill it with my shoe. It could get ON ME FISH. And I'd have to throw my shoe out too. Think of something else."

"I'll call you back," he replied. This is not because he was thinking of solutions for me so much as it was because he had customers with problems he could actually solve and thus, wisely decided to focus on them instead.

I am left to deal with the spider alone. We are having somewhat of a staring contest (I think at one point I even said to Fish in my best crazy-talk voice "He's staring at me!"). I have to get my laundry done tonight. And I can't just leave when there's a spider in my house. There is no way around it. I must pluck up the courage and Act.

I run to my front door and open it wide. I am going to carry the basket out there, but I can't pause to open the door with the basket in my hand, because the thing might get ON ME. So I do it ahead of time (score one for advance planning). I go back to the dining room. Carefully I check all over the outside of the basket, looking for more of them (another of my irrational spiderisms is that if I see one, there is obviously an army of 65 others hiding nearby waiting to pounce). Finding no other interlopers, I grasp the edge of the basket and start walking quickly toward my front door. As soon as I start moving, IT starts moving. Blood curdling screams fill the house, if not most of the neighborhood. Immediately upon getting to the porch, I drop the thing like it's on fire. The spider bounces and almost falls out one of the side holes. I shriek again, because if it is airborne it could get ON ME. But he falls back into the basket and scrambles back to his post to stare at me some more.

Quickly as I can I make several trips to the car, always watching for movement from the basket, and skirting it as much as possible. I get everything into the car and lock myself in. Paranoid, I check every surface of my car for the elusive Spider Army. Fish calls back in the middle of this sweep. "Any progress?"

"Um. Um. Um. (I struggle with words when I'm on the verge of panic.) Lateral progress. The basket with spider is outside on my porch, and I am in my car with my laundry."

"Well good! How is that lateral?"

"Um. Yeah. Um. Well, you see, I'm going to go do my laundry now, but when I get back it will be dark. And I won't be able to SEE where it is. So. I have no idea how I'm going to get back in my house. But I don't have to deal with it for a few hours, so the problem is temporarily solved."

Fish talks to me calmly while I drive to the laundromat. He graciously gets online to research characteristics of the Brown Recluse, since I have now convinced myself that that is what this creepy fucker is. He is patient and makes affirmative sounds as I ramble on about how they are Evil, and Conniving, and Dastardly, and most importantly, Trying To Eat Me. My blood pressure has nearly returned to normal by the time I pull into the parking lot.