creepy crawlies

I took a life tonight. I'm still a little shaken up over it, but not for the reasons you might think.

(I understand this spider is pretty cute and my story may lose its effect, but when I googled all the creepy little buggers I lost my appetite for their shock value and figure I'd spare you all.)

Someone told me once that you swallow, on average, seven spiders in your lifetime. I startled at the fact at first but then resigned myself to the fact that, if they were to invade my personal space so fully in the night, at least I'd have no idea. Ignorance is bliss right?

Well, just tonight, Parker & I killed the lights to snuggle up on the family room floor and relax after a long day.

Everything seemed so perfect there in his arms. He gave me a sweet kiss or two on the cheek and I lay there wondering how this could get any better. A warm summer night spent safe in his embrace, not giving a single thought of what might come tomorrow.

And then it happened.

I felt a little tickle run up my arm that lay tangled up in his.

At first I dismissed it as my hair...then realized the impossibility of it making such a reach.

Then I thought...maybe it's just the hair on Parker's arms...but he lay so still while the tickling pressed on.

After a few seconds more spent wondering what on earth it could be, I freaked, startling my sweet husband. He scrambled to his feet and flipped on the light to find...

nothing.

I knew what I felt. And it was not nothing. We sat there for a moment flipping up blankets and pillows and books to no avail, resigned to the fact that my supposed culprit had vanished.

A flash of movement—eight hairy legs spring from under the couch and make a dash for my pillow.

I screech like a broken record.

"I knew it! I knew it! Kill it! Kill it! Oh this is so beyond awful. It was on me! ON me!"

Parker flips up the pillow and karate chops the big black speck scuttling across the floor. He scoops it up in a piece of paper and crushes it out of its misery. I ask to look. I immediately wish I hadn't. Yet I feel no remorse.

I suppose my arm is better than my mouth, but I can't help but think that if those suckers are brave enough to roam over me while I'm awake, they'll roam wherever they please when unconscious with sleep. Parker said he'd felt a tickle on his thigh too.

The nerve—nasty, little, squash-ed bug.

May this be a lesson to all your little buddies who seek vengeance tonight. I'll be waiting...