Along Came a Spider

It was the second day I was here in Lisieux. I was sitting in my apartment, watching season six of Buffy, when I saw something move behind my bed. I peeked behind my bed and saw this really huge spider with long, thin legs. It seemed way larger than a daddy-long-legger, but maybe that’s because of the massive fear it instilled in me.

I’ve never once trapped a spider. When I lived at home I would have my mom or dad take care of it, and when I lived in Ocean City Mike was the professional spider-remover. I know there were times that I saw spiders when no one was home, but I used to have this weird ability to forget about them. I would just close the door to whatever room I was in and think to myself, “OK, if it’s still in there later, someone else will get it.”

But I couldn’t do that here. This spider wasn’t going anywhere, and no one else was going to come to my rescue. What was I gonna do, go ask my landlord? I don’t even know the word for spider. Actually, wait, I think I do thanks to the last episode of Buffy I watched, but that’s hardly the point.

The spider was a hard one to trap because he got behind my bed. You saw the size of my bed though – it’s not like it’s hard to move. I saw his skinny body crawling toward my suitcases under the bed and that was enough to make me jump into grown-up mode. I had visions of his little body snuggling up in there all winter and waiting for me to start packing for home in May, when he and his army of spiders could finally attack me (cause, you know, in my vision he was commander-in-chief of the spider army). Anyway, I grabbed a plate and a glass and did this cool trick I saw Rachel do once at her apartment to get the spider out without killing it. My dad always told me never to kill a spider. I think I may have injured his leg though. Sorry.

I debated for a long time about whether or not this story was blog-worthy. And I have decided that it is. Maybe I don’t have a touristy picture of it, and maybe I didn’t have to practice any French, and maybe it’s something that could have happened anywhere in the world. But you know what? I think it marks a change in me. I can trap a spider now. Hooray for independence.