It’s The Little Things: A Funny Spider Story

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I had a post about a product half-written for my Littlest Things weekly post. I kept trying to sit down and finish it, but after yesterday’s post, my heart just felt sad. And whenever that happens, all I want to do is laugh. And the best way I can think of laughing is to poke fun at myself. So I am going to toss all logic out the window and just share a funny thing that happened to me a couple of weeks ago.

First, you might need the backstory if you are new here. The short version is, I don’t kill Daddy Long Leg Spiders in my house. It is a craziness tradition passed down from my grandmother to my mother to me (although she recently told me she has begun to clear them out. Traitor). My husband goes along with it. In fact, he is the wrangler of the spiders. He moves them from spot to spot. With his barehands. Yep, he is a regular old enabler CowSpiderboy.

Second, my husband and I take baths together. This is the part where my children run through the house screaming and crying over too much sharing. But we do. In a completely platonic way. It is the best time to unwind and talk over our day. And we are guaranteed that we will not be interrupted.

Okay. Now that both of those disturbing and freaky facts are out of the way, we can finally begin:

My husband and I were taking a bath. We were conversing. And everything seemed to be going smoothly.

But halfway through the bath, my husband looked at me and a horrified expression broke out across his face. He was staring at the top of my head. There obviously was something on it.

I knew.

I knew that I was going to die.

“WHAT IS IT?!” I immediately screamed. Because panicking is what I do best.

Instead of answering my question, my husband gave me these instructions, “Don’t. Move.”

So, what would you do?

Would you sit there calmly not knowing what was on your head? Would you wait for an explanation?

Or would you do what I did and lose your mind?

I shrieked, “IS IT A BLACK WIDOW?!”

You are probably wondering why I would immediately jump to Black Widow. And I am going to have to answer, I have no flipping idea. No, we do not have an infestation of Black Widows… At our house. Yes, we do have an infestation of crazy… In our minds.

No reply.

“IS. IT. A. BLACK. WIDOW???!!!

Still no reply.

So, at this point I know. I know I have a black widow on my head and it is going to bite me. And I am going to die. My head all bloated and disfigured in the bathtub. My naked body wrinkled and cold waiting for the coroner to come.

I began to thrash and scream. I was trying to drown the black widow in the bathtub. If I was going to be humiliated, I was taking the little sucker down with me.

My husband quickly jumped out of the bathtub. He calmly told me to stop moving around.

“AM I DEAD?! DID IT BITE ME?!” I managed to scream in between dunking my head over and over into the water. Water was sloshing everywhere. My head was getting banged against the faucet. I am a treat. A downright gift to marriage.

All of a sudden my husband grabbed my legs from outside the bathtub. Then he dragged me feet first and yanked me onto the cold tile floor.

First, can I tell you how much that hurt? My back will never be the same.

I was sobbing.

And let’s pause for a moment and reflect on the fact that this scenario is happening in the buff.

You’re welcome.

I couldn’t feel where I had been injected, but I knew my head must be the size of a watermelon. “WHAT DOES IT LOOK LIKE? CALL 9-1-1! MAYBE THEY CAN GIVE ME AN ANTIDOTE!”

My husband was stoically quiet.

“WHY AREN’T YOU HELPING ME? I’M DEAD! CALL 9-1-1!”

Still ignoring me. Still quiet. He was staring into the churning water that had just moments before been a peaceful sanctuary.

“Is it dead?” I managed to mutter in-between rocking myself on the hard floor.

I wiped my eyes and peered into the bathtub. I couldn’t find the Black Widow.

I didn’t see anything.

“Where is it?”

Then another horrifying thought occurred to me and I lurched to my wobbly feet. “IS IT STILL ON ME? OH MY GOD! GET IT!”

My husband was in a quiet ponder. He just pointed to a tiny shape in the bathtub. It looked like a small wadded up ball of string.

“It’s right there.”

“That’s the Black Widow?!”

It sure didn’t look like one.

My husband sighed. “There was no Black Widow. It was just a Daddy Long Legs.”

If one month ago, you felt the Earth tilt on its orbit, shudder, and then keep on spinning, please know that that was just my emotions catching up with my brain. Or maybe the following syllable being screeched. “WHAT?!”

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“WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY THAT? You know I’m not scared of Daddy Long Legs!” I paused. “And why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t a black widow?”

My husband looked resigned as he scooped the tragic fellow of my tale from the tub. “You didn’t give me a chance. You just started freaking out.”

“Well, you made me freak out when you wouldn’t answer me.”

It was at this point my back that had been dragged across the side of the bathtub began to throb. “And my back! Why did you drag me out of the bathtub?”

“I thought you were going to drown yourself. You should have seen it. You were flailing. You were going to get hurt.”

I rubbed my back, “Yea. Well. Next time, just say it’s a Daddy Long Legs. Then none of this would have happened.”

I said, “next time,” because it’s us. There will always be a next time.

I mean with as many Daddy Long Legs I keep in my house, it was only a matter of time before one made it into a fashion post. Poor fellow. All he wanted to be was a hat. I prefer them much better when they are just pretending to be art on the wall.

I’m quite terrified some of them are going to gather together and make me a necklace.

Hey! I’m just like Cinderella.

Only without a fairy godmother.

Or a glass slipper.

Although, I do have plenty of chores to do. And creatures at my beck-in-call.

Let’s just hope I never get invited to a ball.

I shudder to think what those spiders will come up with as a dress.

Besides, I don’t think my poor prince husband or my back can take any more fashion assistance from our eight-legged guests.

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It’s the little things: a funny story coming from terror. Or learning something new about yourself.

Have you had a similar thing happen to you? Do you kill the spiders in your home? Did you learn any life lessons this week?

My husband has. He has definitely learned some valuable lessons from all of this.

1. He married a crazy person.

2. That crazy person wants to keep spiders all over the house.

3. When one of those spiders crawls onto her she will immediately freak out and attempt a drowning suicide.

4. Relaxing baths should just be called baths around here.

5. He should have been a cowboy.

24 thoughts on “It’s The Little Things: A Funny Spider Story

  1. That’s so funny. I love how you don’t want to kill them but are scared stiff of them too 🙂 We don’t kill any animals in our house, which is probably helped that we have only 1 or 2 that might kill you. Every September-October in particular our house is plagued by daddy long legs and we catch them in our hands and take them outside.

    I don’t know if I told you this but we name all our insects, all spiders are called Charlie, all flies and Victor, wasps are William etc. The things I hate are snails, they eat all my plants and are just yucky to pick up, that said I do hate accidentally standing on them and I hear that crunch. Sometimes in the winter if I take out the trash in the dark and I put my hand down and pick up a bin and I grab a snail which is near the handle then that is not nice for either of us.

    This year the U.K. is having a plague of False Widow spiders that seem to be sending quite a few people to intensive care. They came over on banana boats from the Canary Islands which is of course awful as I hate bananas so I am totally innocent!

    The only really poisonous animal here is the Adder (is that a Viper) but they only get one or two people a year at most. Many more get killed by cows! Still I’d rather have cows than snails, yucks!

    • Thanks for sharing Stephen! I want you to know I have a bag of bananas sitting in my counter that are sealed. And I have been walking by them all day checking to see if I can see anything moving. After watching a National Geographic show many years ago about banana spiders, they TERRIFY me. Oh my gosh! I really need to open that bag before the end of the night. I wonder if a daddy long legs would win that fight? Shivers!

      Keep safe from them and have a beautiful weekend!

      Jenni

  2. This is so hilarious! But seriously, how do husbands not know that they should never say “Don’t move” while staring wide-eyed at their wife. I mean, that should just be right in the wedding vows, right?!? I usually end up screaming and smacking at myself whenever my husband does that to me.

    • Thanks Katie! I know, right? And you would think after this he would not do that again. But I bet he does. Hopefully I won’t find out for a long long time! And you, too! Fingers crossed!

      Thanks for commenting! Have a happy day!

      Jenni

  3. O.K. – You made me LOL at my desk! This is hilarious, and WOULD be like something that would happen to me! I had a squirrel on the loose in my house for several days one time (apparently he came down the chimney). I had “evidence” for several days BEFORE he was apprehended (a broken vase, chewed up wine corks, “pills”) When he finally ran out from underneath a couch, I was standing on an ottoman, screaming! He didn’t leave without scratching the hell out of my (then new) couch! But, to this day, whenever I see one in the road, I STILL dodge to keep from hitting them!

    • Thank you Judi! Oh my gosh! How terrifying! I do not know what I would have done in that situation. I don’t know that I could have slept at night. Of course how the heck I get any sleep knowing there are creepy crawlies all around me is a mystery to me. I love that you still watch out for them! Be careful though! I once had an accident when I tried to avoid a rabbit. And the poor rabbit died anyway. : (. Now I just hope they move. Thank you for sharing!

      Have a lovely weekend!

      Jenni

  4. Very funny, and especially visualizing the whole thing! Living with spiders seems to be a family thing? I finally had to get rid of some … Uncle Don had way too many that he considered his ‘friends’. 🙂
    Just curious, did your husband watch the spider come down its web and land on your head?

    • Ha! It is a family thing. Do you remember the one Uncle Tom smashed on his face that he thought was a rat?

      Exactly! How the heck did he miss that giant spider crawling on me. I can only think it came from the hole near the faucet. And crawled up my back! Eeep! I have never sat on that side of the bathtub since then. No way!

      Have a great weekend! Thanks for making me smile!

      Jenni

    • Oh! Thank you so much Lyn! I appreciate that! I wrote it last night and worried I had not spent enough time on it (I usually write a story and then proofread it and work on it for at least a few days prior). So thank you!

      Have a terrific Friday!

      Jenni

  5. This was a hilarious post, Jenni; I have to admit I was cringing the entire time I was reading it! I do kill spiders in our home, but I always feel kind of bad when I do. I completely understand your hesitance to kill them, even when you just want them gone!

    And I love your idea of taking baths together! I will have to keep that one in mind when we have little kiddos running around our house someday; while I think a shared bath sounds so intimate and sweet when imagining it between my husband and me, I think that knowing my parents did it would STILL keep me at bay from their house around “bath time.” LOL

    • Thank you Casey! I do kill the other spiders. I just don’t kill the daddy long legs! They eat the other spiders. I cannot imagine how many more big black spiders we would have if it were not for them.

      And, yes, take a bath together! I do it because my husband is stuck. He has to talk to me! So we have all of our deepest conversations during that time period. I think because you are all ready vulnerable, it makes it easier to be that way emotionally, too!

      I am sure there are many things I do my children have vowed to never do themselves! : ). That’s the fun of being a parent!

      Have a beautiful Friday!

      Jenni

  6. I literally laughed my ass off. Literally. I have no ass left now. All your fault!!
    I am kind of impressed that your husband could just lift you by the ankles like that. But also kind of concerned for your back. Normally I’d suggest a hot bath, but… 😉

    I’m actually just as scared of Daddy Long-legs as I am of spiders. When I was little they would always get into my bedroom, because my dad insisted on FRESH AIR, i.e. WINDOWS OPEN WIDE and all the lights on. Oh, the horror. The sound of those things buzzing and clicking in a far corner of the room… You’re a braver soul than me… mostly… 😛

    • Thank you! Yes. I had no idea he could lift me (well actually drag) me. It is a new skill I am sure he is proud of.

      Not that I will be letting him test it out any time soon.

      Daddy long legs here are different than your daddy long legs. Here the are a spindly spider that can grow to be the size of your palm. Their bodies are very thin and they have long skinny legs. They don’t bite, but kill other bugs. The daddy long legs you guys have over there are terrifying!!!

      Have a rad Friday!

      Jenni

  7. Hysterical! OMG! I can’t stop LOLing! If my husband stared at my head and said don’t move I would also have flipped out. Just like you. I haaaaate spiders. And if one wanted to make himself a hat on my head he too would be dead.

    • Thank you Cynthia! I would freak out all over again, because you can’t just say that to a person and then ignore their questions!!! Of course, he still thinks O freaked out for no reason! : )

      If I had known it was a daddy long legs, I wouldn’t have killed it. Poor thing.

      Have a creep crawly free evening! And a fabulous Friday!

      Jenni

  8. Hysterical. I would have freaked out as well, just like you did.

    I’m afraid of all bugs. Grew up in a very urban area. First saw a Daddy Long Legs at summer camp and freaked out whenever I saw one. I hate spiders and while I know they are good at killing other bugs, if I see one in my house, it’s going down since it’s not contributing to the monthly mortgage nut. I run from yellow jackets after getting stung by one as a kid. One of my friends said I went screaming running up to the teacher. LOL.

    Your blog is definitely a guilty pleasure and I look forward to your posts. Have a great upcoming weekend!

    • Thank you so much Bronzi. I can picture the image you painted as a child with the spider. Too funny. That is me a lot of the time. I think being raised to NEVER EVER kill a daddy long legs really stuck in my head. My poor husband! : )

      Thank you for sharing your funny story. It made me smile tonight.

      I hope your day tomorrow goes exactly as you hoped!

      Jenni

  9. Oh My Gosh! I laughed so hard I choked on my banana!!!! That was hysterical! I hope your back is better honey. But I honestly I would have freaked out with a daddy long legs. You are really very brave.

    • Thanks Mom! Okay now you have me laughing! Ha! Brave?! Nope. And you taught me to love the daddy long legs. Of course, my sister did not inherit that love! ; ). Now I want a banana!

      Have a happy week! I’ll talk to you soon!

      I love you!

      Jenni

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