Vermin Of The Worst Kind

While writing my last post, I realized I had yet another laundry story that needed to be shared, albeit  in the direct path of something darker and more sinister.

I was in Australia in 2007 and lived in a house that contained 17 girls and one bathroom…the bathroom has nothing to do with this story, but I felt it important to note, as it is somewhat of a miracle for that many girls to peacefully live together with just one commode. I use the word "peacefully" loosely.
I had some free time on a Saturday so I decided it was the perfect time to do my laundry. I carried or rather dragged a pile of laundry to the back of the house where the washer and dryer were located and began the process. Normally, you would turn on the water, add soap, then the throw in the clothes. This time it was not so. I turned on the water. I added the soap. Then I put in…BAM! Something to my left, on the floor, caught my attention; I thought it was a mouse. I WISH it had been a mouse. NO! No, no…the thing that caught my eye was a large, later to be known as “Huntsman”, spider the size of my hand.

I froze. That is my normal position when I see a spider of any size.

After an undetermined amount of seconds, or minutes, I started yelling for any roommates left in the house, I couldn’t leave because any sane person knows that if you leave the room after seeing a spider, the spider disappears, and then you have to burn the house down. I had enough mind-over-matter power in that instant to know that this was not my house therefore I could  not burn it down. So I had to wait. I heard that someone was on their way so I prayed that God would let me graciously pass out. But I didn’t. One of the girls that I shared a room with came out and shouted for me to throw her my flip flop….MY FLIP FLOP! I know I mentioned this already but it is important to remember that this monster was the size of my hand and my flip flop would only bounce of the sucker. So I did the only thing I could do. As soon as the girl began striking the nasty thing with someone else’s shoe, I ran.

During my stay in Australia, I found 4 more of the spiders in our house ("spi-dar" is not a gift), to total 5. I was told at one point that everyone knows Huntsman spiders travel in pairs. You read that right. P-A-I-R-S. I had seen 5; 5 divided by 2 …now you get it.

Every night I thought about how we supposedly eat spiders during our sleep and was paranoid that my time would come with one that I couldn't swallow. Welcome to my nightmare. I didn’t know until the end of my stay there, that someone had found the 6^th spider.

I really need to learn the art of deliberate fainting.