Little Miss Muffet

When we moved into our previous house, we forgot to factor in the time it would take for our water bed to heat to a level that was comfortable to sleep on, rather than ice-skate on. So, we set it up, turned on the heater and prepared to bunk down on the hide-a-bed monster sofa we had downstairs. That was the heaviest couch IN THE WORLD. We had moved it a couple of times and it was definitely a man-killer. And uncomfortable. Oh, my gosh. It had a bar that fit right across your back, across your shoulder blades and was roughly like sleeping on the bars of a jail cell. But, better than an icy water bed. We actually tried to sleep in our water bed without heating it up when we moved last time. We kept getting up to put more blankets on the bed and add more clothing, but it was hopeless. The cold just seeped.

Anyway. We knew we had to sleep on the couch, so we opened it up and made it up. We were just getting ready to turn out the lights and get in the bed when I saw it. A spider. On the brick fireplace. Just...hanging there on the brick.

I don't like spiders. As someone with a terminal case of arachnophobia, I pretty much don't like anything that crawls or skitters. But this was..a big spider. Like, big. The size of a baby's head. It was fuzzy and had many, uncountable legs. (I know there were only eight, but it looked like many more.) We looked at each other. We looked at the mammoth spider. This was definitely a guy job. Tom got geared up. My memory actually blanks at this point. The horror. But I know at some point, we looked over at the wall. And the spider had disappeared. Rather than making us feel relieved of course, we were horrified. Where had it gone? As I recall, I did a rather entertaining spider dance on top of the coffee table, shrieking at Tom to FIND IT. We NEVER found it. We finally gave up and got in bed, shaking the covers and checking carefully before we got in. We never saw it again.

Now, here's the thing. How did a spider the size of a baby's head (I am NOT exaggerating) get out of there? It certainly couldn't go under any doors or through a crack. The only possible outlet was the fireplace so maybe it skittered up there when it saw the terrifying spider dance.

We found out later from our friend Keith that it was probably a wolf spider and they like to live in piles of old firewood, which our obligingly moronic seller had left behind. But I swear that thing was bigger than 2 inches - it was as big as a hand, no kidding. Maybe it was an escaped tarantula that had piggy-backed it's way to Kentucky on a bunch of bananas.

Seeing it bothered me for a while when we went down there to watch tv. I kept my feet curled up and checked carefully when I walked. Eventually, I forgot about it. But I will never forget looking over and seeing it hanging there on that brick wall. Huge. Hairy. Horrible.

Ugh.