TIB Part III

Let me tell you a little about my night last night.

Just so you know, this is just one story from this weekend, not the entirety of what I want to share with you all. But first I must tell you this story of survival.

Last night, mostly everyone was hanging out at our house. As it approached 10:00, maybe a little after, people were starting to gather themselves and disperse to their respective sleeping quarters. I went into the other room to start getting ready for bed, and when I came out about 2 minutes later, everyone was gone. Downstairs was deserted, door locked and everything. So I went over to our couch to pack up my computer so I could go to bed. Something caught my eye though, so I looked down and about 6 inches from my left foot, there was a tarantula.

In our house. By my foot. In our house. By my foot.

This would be the time to tell those of you who don't know that I have severe arachnophobia. Not just "ew spiders are yucky!" No, we're talking tears and nausea and overturning furniture to kill a spider rather than let it escape because I won't be able to sleep. Those of you who have ever joked about spiders with me and saw how highly unamused and upset I was know that there is just no messing around about this.

So there I was: pressed up against our bedroom door, eyes glued on the monster so it doesn't get the idea to scurry under the couch, and trying to decide if it was fake or not. The only other person downstairs was Kelley and she had been sleeping for the past hour. My other housemates were upstairs, but the way our house is built, the stairs are outside. So I had no choice but to open our bedroom door, but instead of walking over and gently waking Kelley up like a normal person (remember, I can't let it out of my sight lest it escapes), I stand in the doorway and quietly say, "Kelley? Kelleeey? Kelley!" Finally she wakes up so I can frantically get out the words "There's a tarantula in our house and everybody is gone!" Being the good roommate that she is, she kept watch while I ran upstairs to fetch Elisabeth who came downstairs and got out an old ice cream tub to trap it. The only problem was that none of us really wanted to trap it, but we had the bigger issue of how do you actually kill a tarantula? You can't just use a shoe, they're messier than that. There was only one solution: we needed a man.

Elisabeth ran over to the boys' house and returned with Jack. In the meantime, Kelley and I are monitoring the horrible thing which has slowly and disgustingly crept a little under the couch but still within trapping range. So as we/Jack is about to strike (Jack placed us on defense. Yeah right, my defense would shutting myself in my room), this is the scene: I'm standing in the bedroom doorway, ready to slam the door. Elisabeth is standing on a chair, and Kelley has a broom while Jack has a rainboot in one hand and the ice cream tub in the other. After the brief debate of us convincing Jack that a flip flop would not kill a tarantula, he slowly approaches it making small talk. Seriously, he was like, "Hey there. Whatcha doin?"

BAM! He slams the tub down. I'm doubled over wanting to cry and pass out. We all hold our breath. Jack slowly drags the tub further away from the couch and now we all realize the next problem.What's sturdy enough to put under the tub to take it outside? 2 notebooks and 1 Eric later, Jack is bringing it outside to kill it. Eric tried to be nice and humane and was like, "oh we could just let it go down over there." But I kept saying, "No, this needs to die!" over and over. So they walk down our street but still within eyesight and Jack places the notebooks/tub on the ground, Eric stands across from him poised and ready to strike with the rock that Jack had also brought over with him. I assume there was a countdown of some kind because then Jack removed the cage and Eric plunked the rock on top of it and declared, "It's guts have been spilled!" He then crushed it a couple more times to stop the twitching. Overall, it was a rather hilarious and anticlimactic ending to a horrific event.

What have learned from this?
1. Spiders are an abomination to the world.
2. Ice cream saves lives. Unless you're a tarantula.
3. I am still the least helpful person when a spider is involved.
4. God knew better than to have this happen when I first got here because I probably would've gone home.

Tarantulas in our house, 5 people involved in it's killing. TIB.

St. Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us.

Totus Tuus, Maria.