I was carrying our baby downstairs last night when I spotted a large black dot on our kitchen floor. Of course, I immediately hollered for Drew to come and dispose of it (he's always slightly worried that I married him solely for his spider-killing abilities), asap. After teasingly grabbing my yellow high heel with the bow on it (I promptly informed him this was not the time for jokes), he grabbed a shoe of substance, and made his way toward the dark intruder. I left him to do the deed, and went about my business with sweet Paisley still attached to my hip.
And that's when I heard it.
"Uh-oh," he said in a very un-Drew-like manner.
"What do you mean 'uh-oh?'" I turned back around to the scene of the crime.
"That's not good," he continued.
"What's not good?" I asked, with slight panic rising in my voice. He was still bent over the eight-legged corpse, with the shoe held in mid-air, when he delivered the news.
"Thousands of little spiders just crawled out of that big one."
That's when I lost it. Every bedbug nightmare, every arachnid-themed horror movie, every creepy-crawly paranoia had just hatched into our sacred dining space. I went berserk.
"WHAT!?! How could you let this happen?!? Don't just stand there, KILL THEM!!!" I shouted with un-characteristic vocal volume.
Drew scurried to the paper towl holder as millions of furry nightmares continued to race across our beautiful hardwoods.
"We're out of paper towels!" he shouted back, just as I was about to make my way back up to higher ground with the baby.
"Are you serious?! Well, get some toilet paper!!! Get more shoes! Use a spoon!!" I began to bark out irrational orders like some kind of crazed line cook.
"They're everywhere, I can't get them all!" Drew frantically called back.
"You better get them all, or we're leaving!!!" I threatened, but was already half-way up the stairs en route to the luggage shelf.
I plopped our startled baby on the bed as I began to savagely stuff jeans, shoes and toothbrushes into a suitcase. She, who's infant eyes have only ever seen sweet images of innocence in the form of plush Pooh bears and pink blankets, was wide-eyed at the escalating scene of terror: shirts flying, hairbrushes rocketing from the bathroom, small tornadoes of underwear and pajamas, all wrapped in a flurry of manic rants from her deranged mother.
"We can't stay here!!" I informed Drew conclusively from the top of the stairs, with baby and bag in tow.
"Jordie, listen to yourself, you're being completely irrational," Drew calmly tried to explain while holding a tissue full of tiny POW's. "Just put the bags down and let's talk about what to do next."
"Irrational?? I'm being irrational??" I spouted, hearing myself for the first time since the ordeal began, and silently concured that it did sound a bit irrational, but didn't care and continued on.
"Your mother is afraid of heights, and your dad doesn't make her ride ferris wheels every night!!!!" I mentally gave myself a pat on the back for coming up with that smart retort in the heat of the moment.
"Can you hear yourself? You sound like a mental patient," he again tried to calmly bring me down from the tirade.
"YOU are the mental patient!!!" I replied, realizing that I was now entering junior-high-argument-territory. "For all we know those could be black widows, or brown recluse, and now they've come with their hats and scarves and are permanently living with us!!! We're going to stay at Mom's house until every last one is gone and THAT'S FINAL!"
The Orkin man will be arriving this afternoon.
