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?!”
“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.
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.
