SPIDER!


Larry quit his job

at the flexowriter place

and went back to school

during the day


and worked at his new job

nights until midnight.


So I was on my own all day from 6 in the morning

and all night until after midnight.

* * *
It was hard for me

because Adam was an active baby

chattering and running all day long


plus I was hugely pregnant with my second.

* * *
Because I was so busy

and tired

it never occurred to me that the oak desk Larry brought home

from a warehouse sale at his new job

and put in our bedroom


might harbor beasties

and need to be bug-sprayed.

* * *
So in the morning when I pulled back the comforter

on our bed

to tighten the sheets

to make the bed


and saw a big yellow and black spider

about an inch across

lazily stretching its eight legs

and realized that I'd slept with it


I went crazy.

* * *
I ran down the hall

as fast as my pregnant legs could run

grabbed a broom

ran back down

pulled the comforter back over the horrible hairy leggy thing

nestled in my bed


and beat it to death.

* * *
I whacked and whacked it

crying at first

heart pounding

breath stopping

and then I saw that Adam was on the other side of the bed

whacking away with the dustpan


and I started to laugh

and I kept beating the bed

until one of the slats broke

and the mattress sagged

and feathers were flying out of the comforter


and Adam was laughing too

as he banged the dustpan against the side of the bed


and I couldn't stop

laughing and whacking

* * *
and it scared me

so I got ahold of myself

and sank down

to the floor

put my head on the edge of the bed

caught my breath

and wondered if I had gone berserk.

* * *
That night when Larry came home

I was sleeping on the couch

so he woke me up to go to bed


and I told him what had happened

and he looked at me like I was crazy

but went back to the bedroom

cleaned up the mess

found another slat for the bed

changed the sheets

for which I was grateful


and brought the spider sheets up front to the washing machine.

* * *
I sat up and said

"Throw those nasty things away!"

and he said

"Why? They just need to be washed"

and I said

"I'm not washing them because I might find a spider leg in them"

and Larry tossed them in the garbage

and said

"There was nothing left of that spider but a smear on the sheets"

and went to bed.

* * *
The next day I took Adam outside

and sat him on his spring horsie


and I went back in and sprayed the heck out of that desk

and the whole trailer


then me and Adam had a picnic lunch out on the patio

and we never went back inside until supper-time.

* * * * * * *


Music Playing: I Will Survive
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©2001

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