After reading the hilarious post by my writer buddy, Nikki McCormack, I just HAD to post about the time I broke through the top of a coffee table trying to kill a wolf spider.
Seriously, true story.
Wolf Spider
If you don’t know what a wolf spider looks like, take a gander. They’re the most terrifying thing on the planet. Except for the Australian funnel web. That SOB should be nuked and taken off the face of the Earth. There is no good reason by everything holy that a spider should have 1/4 inch long fangs and run at you trying to suck your face off. Just sayin’
Anyway, while living in Aurora, CO, I was introduced to the wolf spider.They can get damn big and they are damn scary. Especially when they’re in the house. Isn’t that funny how that works out? When they’re outside, they don’t seem nearly as intimidating.
We lived in a tri-level house with the main floor housing the living room, kitchen, dining room; top floor with two bedroom and a bathroom; lower floor with family room, bedroom, bathroom/laundry room). I had a glass of water and headed down the stairs to the family room. Directly in front of me was the coffee table, meaning that I had to usually navigate around it to the right to get to the couch. Along the right hand wall, there was a lovely electrical fireplace that provided both ambiance and warmth during those harsh snowstorms we had years back.To the left of the coffee table was the big long couch but I preferred to sit on the one directly opposite the TV so it was to this couch I was heading that fateful day.
As I was getting ready to walk around the coffee table, a gargantuan wolf spider scuttled out from underneath the coffee table and pressed it’s hairy body against the edge of the electric fireplace. Well, I can tell you, I shrieked like a girl at a Jonas Brothers concert and nearly spilled my water. I think I may have ran in place trying to rid myself of the ooky feeling those 8-legged critters leave me with.
I was barefoot, or else I would have stomped that bastard into oblivion. There was literally nothing within reach for me to use. I considered running back up the stairs to grab a shoe or perhaps a grenade launcher, but the thought of losing sight of the spider left me frozen in place. I simply couldn’t do it. What if the bugger slunk away and hid under the couch, waiting for my tender ankles to make their appearance.? I’d never know, don’t you see?
I was running out of options. Suddenly, I spotted the toe of one of my tennis shoes peeking from beneath the coffee table, just in front of the couch I so longed to sit on. I could clearly remember kicking them off after taking my morning run! I was saved! Slowly, so as not to frighten the beast, I sat my water cup down in the top of the fireplace and made to creep along the left side of the table.
Oh CRAP!
I backed up, realizing that the table now blocked my view of the offending arachnid. Now what the hell was I going to do? Let me tell you I was nearly in hysterics by now.
Then like a flash of lightning it hit me!
Just go across the coffee table!
I couldn’t believe this didn’t occur to me sooner. I’d be able to keep the spider in my sight and be safe from it’s gleaming little fangs (I swear I could actually see the venom dripping from them by this point).
I gingerly stepped up onto the coffee table and began making my way to the other side when suddenly, the table gave way! I shrieked, reaching a fumbling hand forward, desperately trying to grab the laces of my shoe, blubbering for God to keep me safe for just a few more seconds. With shoe in hand, I laid into that spider like it was the devil himself. When I was done with it, there was only a large splotch and I think maybe a tiny piece of one of its legs.
Now, in walks my husband. He heard the commotion and wondered what the hell was going on. And there I was, triumphant smile on my face, wielding my spider-killing shoe (which I thereafter called ArachnoKiller), standing in the space left by the piece of plywood that had fallen with me on it.
See, our coffee table wasn’t a solid piece of wood. The edges were nice and sturdy, as was the middle piece. There were two pieces of plywood stapled to the bottom of the table, leaving the top with two small areas where you could glue ceramic tiles or something to make it all pretty. Everything was all good as long as I was standing on the solid wood. But as soon as my weight hit the plywood, the staples gave way and the piece of wood went straight down, leaving my standing in the middle of the empty hole.
When one is in the grip of fear, one isn’t exactly thinking rationally. It isn’t my fault. Really.
Well, Rich took one look at me, heard me mumble the word “spider”, turned to go back into the garage to get the stale gun.
So the moral of the story?? Always have a weapon handy in case of emergency!
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