Mrs. HM is generally not a bloodthirsty person. Not one to flog you with a cat-o'nine-tails and force you to stroll down the plank over shark-infested waters. UNLESS...
You have eight legs and dare to approach her OPC (Old People Chair) at 2:55 a.m.
Sweet Gummi Mary! At least I was awake. I'd just vacated my dark basement lair, and plopped my ample rumpus down in the OPC, and sloowwwllllyyyyy tilted it back. There might be something wrong with the controls. Or else I'm more demanding of my Chair than the standard Old People. I picked up the remote to turn on the TV and DISH. Selected a channel.
AND SAW MOVEMENT ACROSS the 12-foot oval rag rug that used to be my grandma's!
You know a rag-rug. It's all woven and whatnot, good camouflage for an eight-legged intruder. But I'm not blind. I can sense movement. I saw a GIANT MEATY SPIDER coming my way.
THAT THING WAS THE SIZE OF MY PALM!
It wasn't a spindly-legged Brown Recluse, all fragile and easy to kill. Nope. And it wasn't a jumpy wolf spider, or a hairy fat tarantula.
IT WAS MEATY!
If you ever plan to eat spider legs, this would be the spider you want to rip them off of. It's body was plump, maybe as long as a silver dollar's diameter.
CRAP!
I needed to stop that behemoth before it got to me. ME! Laid back in my OPC! Like a turtle on my back, unable to flail adequately to expel a GIANT MEATY SPIDER from my extremities as it marched towards my face!
Because that's what they do, right? Spiders crawl in your mouth while you're asleep. I'm sure I've read statistics on the odds of this happening. Like, people eat 8 spiders a year. Not by choice. And other statistics like you're never more than 10 feet from a spider. Well, I was only five feet from this one! Maybe six, considering that it was on the floor, and I was hoisted in my OPC.
Using my steel-trap mind, I quickly (meaning sloowwwllllyyyyy) cranked my OPC forward. I'm not very spry, you know. I hoisted myself upright, though stooped with a dowager's hump, as I grabbed my right New Balance that was the only thing blocking the path of the GIANT MEATY SPIDER.
Well, then. The GMS stopped in its eight tracks. Made a right turn, and headed off the braided rag rug and onto the tile, towards the old recliner that Farmer H sits in to unwrap Christmas presents. I figured I had ONE SHOT. I held the right New Balance by the toe, and threw the heel part at the GMS.
DIRECT HIT!
But then the GMS crawled out from under the right New Balance, and under the old recliner! So close, but yet so far! I was hoping that I'd detected a slight limp. Like maybe the GMS was only operating on seven legs now. Moving 1/8 slower!
THERE IT WAS!
The GMS came out the front right corner of that old recliner. Ooh! I still had one New Balance left! I picked up the left one, and actually took a step and leaned on the Old Recliner to steady my aim, and smashed the heel of the left New Balance onto the GMS.
Except the GMS disappeared back under the old recliner. Still armed with the left New Balance, I moved the old recliner. Nothing. I'm guessing that the GMS was clinging to the undercarriage. I put the old recliner back in position as before. So it wasn't touching the metal pole that supports the main house beam.
I didn't want to take away The Pony's fun of seeing the old recliner rock by itself. Although a spider that size may be what's been causing the motion all along!
I did not fall asleep in my OPC. If that GIANT MEATY SPIDER tried to become a snoozing hors d'oeuvre for me, I would surely need a rescuer to perform the Heimlich maneuver. I'm pretty sure the Mansion is fresh out of rescuers at 3:00 a.m.
3 comments:
I've seen some big spiders at my house, too. When you can literally hear them walk across a floor, they're too big to live (as far as I'm concerned).
Any spider big enough to own property should stay on that property and not be invading your lair. Perhaps he was out shopping for snacks, with a family of big-enough-to-own-property spiders waiting at home for him to return.
Let's hope they don't come looking for him. Or her.
Sioux,
That might be what got my attention. Not the movement, but the sound. Like Godzilla stomping through Tokyo.
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River,
NO NO NO! Not a FAMILY, too! I told The Pony about my experience when he came down to watch TV the next day. Heh, heh! At Christmas, when Farmer H sits in that chair, I'm sure we will cut eyes and smirk at each other, keeping our "little" secret. There could be a whole NEST of those behemoths weighting down that chair by then.
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