My alarm clock was well into its morning assault. And I had slowly begun negotiating my return from whatever lovely dream I was having and back into the less imaginative confines of my bedroom. It was a weekday. Which meant there was no time to stay in bed and ruminate about yesterday evening’s triumphant pool game or that second glass of wine I had been so impishly talked into. So, like any dutiful citizen of the nine-to-five republic, I surrendered to the morning, sat up, rubbed my eyes until the room reluctantly came into focus and shuffled my way towards the shower.
As I was decked out in my favorite pajamas – my soft, oversized, green t-shirt and a pair of granny panties – I gave myself a passing glance in the mirror on the way to the bathroom, purely for quality control purposes. And out of the corner of my eye, I saw something black sitting on the front of my t-shirt.
I stopped. Put it in reverse. And turned to look again. And to my utter horror, there was a huge furry spider making its way towards my face.
What followed was complete panic dancing, piercing screams, flapping my shirt frantically and slapping my chest as hard as I could in an attempt to crush it. I carried on with this pure nightmare of an experience for a solid 10 seconds before looking in the mirror again to see if it was gone. To my rapidly escalating distress, it had moved up to my collar. At that point, all reason was promptly ejected from my psyche.
I proceeded to immediately hulk-hogan the shirt from my body with one violent rip. When it hit the floor, I stomped and jumped all over it to make certain the spider didn’t escape to some dark corner of my room only to visit me at a later date.
After what seemed an eternity, I felt for certain it must now be deceased. So I stopped to catch my breath and look down at the wreckage. Panting. Hair wild. Heart pounding. Sweat running down my brow. I didn’t see any movement, so I slowly took my big toe to turn the shirt over and confirm the homicide. And there it was. Lying beneath my battle torn favorite t-shirt. A big piece of black fuzz looking up at me with what I can only describe as deep concern.