September 5th, 2013 | Uncategorized
Katie and I just had one of our scariest and most hilarious experiences tonight. As part of her club, she received a practice uniform that she has to wear to each practice. Rather than pay for a load of laundry every other day, she has economically opted to wash the gear in the sink. While reaching for the detergent which we keep under the sink in our apartment, I heard her yelp and run towards our room. She told me to come look under the sink, which I did. On a dish towel in the wash bucket was a big, hairy, long-legged, nasty looking spider.
Typically, spiders don’t bother me, but this one was not very friendly looking. While I tried to devise an action plan, Katie repeated over and over “Don’t let it get away.” I assured her that I wouldn’t. With a sister-in-law who is terrified of all arachnids, I am an expert spider exterminator.
I chose my weapon, a bottle of kitchen cleaner, went for it, and MISSED! Katie started screaming and coming up with all these worst-case scenarios about waking up with it crawling across her face and things like that. I told her it probably just went back to its spider home and wouldn’t bother us anymore. Katie hesitantly returned to washing her gear in the sink, but left the cabinet open to keep an eye on things.
Katie was scrubbing away and we were talking about evolutionary reasons for certain fears (we are a bit nerdy to say the least) when suddenly, our friendly neighborhood spider reappeared. Barefooted Katie started jumping up and down screaming for me to kill it, which in turn startled me into running away. Finally, I figured out what she was saying and stomped on it with a satisfying crunch. We crushed it one more time with a paper towel, just to be safe.
Moral of the story: when spider hunting, don’t miss!
