So I live on the 20th floor of an apartment building, and one of the things I like to mention as an upside to living this high up is that there are very few bugs. And this is true, there are fewer bugs this high up, but I still get the occasional bug, and boy was I rudely reminded of that yesterday.
I was lying on my bed, reading, and it was getting late. My french balcony doors were open because it was hot out, and we’d had a beautiful sunset earlier. Since it was still light out when I’d lain down to read, I only had my nightlight on and so when I decided to get up and get ready for bed it was pretty dark. The doors were still open and there was a beautiful pink glow from where the sun had set earlier, that I decided to take a closer look at. So I walked over to the balcony, admired the view for a bit, and then brushed what I thought was a stray hair out of my face. Newsflash: it was not hair.
The moment I realized it was some sort of big bug entangling itself with my hair I freaked the fuck out. Shaking out my hair and sprinting for the light switch because I couldn’t see shit!
I walked back carefully to find that a freaking SPIDER had tried to land on my head. I get the chills just writing this down. I TOUCHED IT. IT TOUCHED ME. It took me a while to get my bearings. It had been hanging by a thread from the ceiling, but all my jumping around probably changed its mind and it was now back up there, rubbing his legs in glee! I could SEE it!
That dude was going down.
Okay I have to be honest I took the time to cuss at my boyfriend for not being there when obviously there were some boyfriendly duties to be performed, and I also took pics for evidence.
BEHOLD:
I realize from this picture he looks kinda tiny, but I assure you he was anything but! Here where I live we are used to getting the spiders with the superskinny legs and like a tiny round brown dot for a body, this guy was something altogether different. At least for me.
Okay so one thing was utterly clear to me: I had to get rid of it. I took a tissue, climbed up onto a chair and got in his face with it. This was about the time that I found out I was quite reluctant to stick my hand out toward it, never mind touch it (again!). It was also moving around restlessly with its spiderlegs, and that unnerved me. Maybe it was one of those jumping spiders, and for a second I flashed back to some youtube video I saw once where a guy is up on a chair in a similar position I was in, (only yeah, his spider was much bigger) and the moment he goes for it the spiders hops right onto his face. I COULD NOT GET THAT IMAGE OUT OF MY HEAD. So I stood there whimpering for a bit and decided that no, this was not the way.
I decided to capture it instead. I got out a glass and a postcard, and went at it the old fashioned do-gooder way. I almost smashed the glass on the ceiling getting him in, and I nearly cut off one of its legs getting the card under, but I wasn’t feeling remorseful.
So now I had this:
He was not happy about being in that glass. Kept trying to find a way out. Go figure. I seriously considered just leaving it in there until it died, I just really did NOT want it out of the glass, and I had all kind of scenarios running through my head where I would lift the glass to kill it only to have it escape. In the end I could do neither, and instead held the glass with card still on it over the balcony railing, I shook the glass a bit to make sure he was sitting at the bottom, then removed the card and quickly turned it around and shook it out. When I next looked it was gone, and I sincerely hope he fell down 20 stories. Pretty sure he’d survive that, too, look at me being all magnanimous, I am a merciful god.
I did however, have an irrational fear of some breeze having picked him up and dropping him right back in my room, so I searched the floor and the doorposts for a bit. Didn’t see him though, and I hope never to see him again. Even just looking at that picture gives me the chills! I can’t believe he landed on my HEAD.
Please never again.
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