ROXIE REWINDS 💙
Because some stories are just too good not to tell again.
Originally published: May 5, 2013
Let me tell you about the day I absolutely lost my mind over a spider.
I’ve never really been scared of spiders. I just don’t want to feel the crunch of their teeny-tiny selves getting smushed. Or see their guts. They don’t ask to be spiders, so who am I to decide if they shouldn’t be here? Just mind your business and I’ll mind mine.
But that was before… before THE SPIDER INCIDENT. The Spider Incident forever changed how I felt about spiders and left any spidey courage I had in tatters.
It was a pretty spring day, and Trixie and I were getting ready to leave for school. I worked at her elementary school, so we’d be leaving together, and I thought I’d run outside real quick and water my plants on the deck. I was wearing a long linen skirt that went down to my ankles, along with a black tank top and shirt.
I came back in, all pleased with myself that I actually had time to do something other than run around the house like a crazy person, and told Trixie I was ready to go.
I was met with total and absolute silence. I looked over at her to see why she was so quiet, and she screamed, “Mom! There’s a HUGE SPIDER ON YOUR SKIRT!”
I tried not to panic and looked down. OMG. It was a wolf spider, and it was sitting near the bottom of my skirt, staring up at me.
My breathing became very shallow. Trixie ran into the kitchen, leaving me alone in the living room. “Bring me a shoe!” I screamed.
“Mom! Get it off! Get it off you!” she screamed back.
Now it was moving. “AAAHHHHH!!!!” I’m pretty sure I sounded like someone was stabbing me. “Help! Help!”
Trixie was jumping up and down in the kitchen, screaming, “Mom! Mom!”
I didn’t want to touch it, but I didn’t know what else to do. So I slowly took off my skirt, jumped out of it backward, and did a full-body shiver-shake like a dog after a bath. Whew! I was a quick thinker! I turned around to go look for one of my shoes that had flown off during the melee, and I saw Trixie staring at me as she slowly raised her arm to point.
“Mo-om… it’s still ON YOU! AAAHHHHH!” She ran back into the kitchen, screaming.
I ripped off my shirt and tank top quicker than you can say howdy-do and shook my hands through the air to make sure it couldn’t be anywhere on me. I breathed a sigh of relief…
…and then looked down. That motherf*cker was SITTING ON MY HIP. I could see his beady little eyes sizing me up. Commence the silent scream. I’m pretty sure dogs from miles away could have heard me.
My hands shot up over my head like I was doing a salsa dance, and the screams were coming in short, gaspy spurts. He must have crawled up the inside of my skirt while I was taking it off. I have never had the heebie-jeebies like I did right then.
So I did the only thing I could do—other than faint—and that was get up the courage to knock it off me. Which meant… I had to touch it. EEEWWWW!!!!
Flick!
It flew off, and I immediately grabbed one of my shoes and pounded the living sh*t out of that thing.
It was finally over. I looked up at Trixie through hair that was covering my face, and she ran into my arms. It was like a scene out of a movie. We destroyed the bad guy and lived to tell about it. Needless to say, we are scarred for life.
I cannot be anywhere near spiders now. I think I have PTSD from it. And it doesn’t help that wolf spiders just loooove our basement.
One day last fall, I put on a jacket I hadn’t worn since the previous spring. I pulled it out of the basement closet and—BAM!—a spider SHOT OUT OF THE ARMHOLE. And then it got up and ran back into the closet.
I am now terrified of the closet.
All I want is for Spider-Man to be real—and to show up with his handy zappy-zappers to come collect his kind and take them away.
But in the meantime, I’m making do with hairspray, heavy shoes, and a firm belief in preemptive strikes… because at this point, it’s not a matter of if I see another spider— it’s whether or not it sees me first.
Another story tucked safely back in the nest.
Thanks for reading ~ Roxie 💙
Roxie Rides Again 