Drunken Spiders

Well, I got to take a shower yesterday! It was very exciting, because I woke up before the kids. This meant that I could shower without a four-year-old asking me why my butt is so big if it is not going to have a baby. Needless to say, that sort of shower is very exciting, so I jumped out of bed and started the water going.

It really is the simple things that matter most, right? So, still blissfully unaware of any evil, I get clothes together, find a razor, and jump in. BRRRR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! There is no hot water! Ok, well, that's ok. That just means I will be REALLY awake for the rest of the day. Most people might go reset the water heater, wait an hour and take a shower then. I, on the other hand, would have to wait another three days to take a relaxing shower, so I decide to brave the frozen waters and pretend I am rafting or glacier hunting or whatever people do where the water is cold. Ok, so I begin soaping, and I am telling myself that it's not that bad, it's kind of nice, actually. I have no idea why it's kind of nice, but I keep telling myself that, hoping I will believe it.

Ok, so I didn't die. So now it's shampoo time. Up until this point, I had not been brave enough to get my hair wet, but it's time to take the plunge. I tilt back my head and squeeze my eyes shut, and waited for the brain freeze to stop. As soon as it did, I opened my eyes and screamed. There is a nice little light right in the middle of the ceiling over my shower. There was a nice big spider crawling out of it. And I am not scared of spiders, but this one was drunk. I am not kidding. It was trying to crawl away from the light, but it was going in this lopsided, zig-zag line, and at any given point in time, at least two of his legs were overcome by gravity and poking down toward, well, toward me, actually. I watched for a minute, and realized that gravity works on drunken spiders just like it does on drunken people. After each swerve, the spider would correct his course again, and promptly fall off of the ceiling. (Most drunk people only fall off a sidewalk, but hey, we aren't spiders.) He caught himself with a little web, I guess, but then he would actually get that all caught in his legs and fall again. Ok, I want out of the shower.

I am not scared of spiders, but I have a serious phobia of things being stuck in my hair. Actually, there are a lot of bugs I am scared of, and 90% of that is from the possibility of them being somehow caught in my hair, forcing me to run until I die, trying to get away from my own hair, knowing the whole time that I could just cut that piece off if I could stop long enough. This has never happened, but I have obsessed over it so much that I am pretty sure this is how I will eventually die. Ok, since I did have a lot to do yesterday, I wasn't quite ready to die yet, and this spider was a serious threat.

I decided to hide while I washed my hair, and to skip any extras, like conditioning or shaving. I hid under the water, and began to shampoo. I was looking up, back against the wall, the entire time, making sure that the drunk spider-of-certain-death wasn't going to meander over to my side of the shower. I rinsed with my eyes open and watching, until I got shampoo in my eyes. I had to stop and rinse out my eyes, all the while keeping my back to the wall. I still had a head full of shampoo when that swaying spider headed my way. I decided to jump ship and rinse my hair in the sink. I took a deep breath, judged the distance to the nearest shower-curtain opening, and made a leap for it. I immediately sprang right backwards, knocking my head into the wall as I went the complete opposite direction that I was supposed to be going!

This was because, as I was looking up and washing my hair, it had become tangled in a little bar of hooks (for hanging loofahs and things on) that my dearest recently attached to our shower wall. I am sure that, when he did that, he had no idea of the mortal danger it would eventually put me in as it barred my escape from the deadly spider.

I watched the spider as I tried to untangle my hair. It was getting closer and closer to my corner. It FELL! I said, in my loudest big-sister-I-am-the-boss voice,"NO, SPIDER!!!!". The spider had apparently had enough of the ceiling, so it decided not to heed my warning, and just come on down to the floor. It was heading right for my hair!!!! I yelled again,"NO, SPIDER! YOU CAN'T COME DOWN HERE!" It didn't work, but I did wake the kids up.

So, while the kids screamed and the spider inched his way down, I finally yanked my hair out of the hook, or out of my head (I still haven't checked to see which, but it did hurt), and leaped through the shower curtain like some kind of naked hairless superhero. And landed squarely on the wet tile (since dearest had removed the bath mat -- maybe he is out to get me), and proceeded to do a five minute get-my-balance dance that made me glad that I had locked the bathroom door. But I was safe! The drunken spider had changed his mind and gone back to the ceiling (probably about the time he realized that I was making the floor a very unsafe place to be).


I spent the next half hour freaking out because every one of my children were burning up as I got them out of bed, and I had no idea what to do. I really lost it when I realized that the baby was feeling like he was probably in a dangerous temp area, and we would probably all have to head to the hospital. So I made a pot of coffee, but, for some reason, the water was hot, even after I checked again to make sure it was on cold. At this point I discovered the reason that all my kids had fevers...my body temperature was so low after being trapped under the cold water for so long that they all felt hot to me, as well as the cold water.

From now on, I am going to check the ceiling before every shower, and when it comes down to it, just enjoy how much safer it is to take a shower while being insulted by a toddler!