So my new thing came quite unexpectedly this week. I was sitting at my desk, minding my own business, when along came a black spider who thought it was a good idea to crawl all over my desk and WAY too close to my hand resting on the mouse. Now, I had been eyeing this sneaky bastard for a while- he had been crawling along the wall next to my desk, weaving in and out of the bookcase beside me. And up until this point I had been trying to live in a peaceful coexistence with him, after all, I do work at an environmentally centered organization...it seemed somewhat sacrilegious to kill him in such a place.
But when that little f-er started crawling on my desk, you better believe I went looking for something to squash his brazen a**; I was the only one in the office, so if no one was there to witness the murder, it never happened. But when I returned, he was nowhere to be found. That smartass hid from me!
So I went back to work (after picking my purse up off the ground just in case he wanted to hitch a ride). My colleagues came in and the hours began to roll by, but as luck (or craptastic luck in this case) would have it, that damn black spider slid right down a thin thread of silk and dangled right in front of my face!!!! OH. MY. FREAKING. GOD. There is a spider in my face!!!!! My first inclination is to always squeal like a girl and run away (you think that is bad, you should see me working in the garden when a bee starts stalking me...). But I couldn't do that, I was at work, there were witnesses to this embarrassing behavior. And I couldn't kill, not with everyone around. I stood there frozen in fear. My coworkers of course noticed that I was standing away from my desk just looking into the air like a complete idiot and I had to confess that I was "somewhat uneasy around spiders" (understatement of the year...decade...millennium).
One of my coworkers handed me the tiniest paper cup I had ever seen and a way too thin piece of paper. I took it, too embarrassed to say "can you please catch it?" (I mean it is ok to say it to a guy- he's socially obligated to "be the man" but in an office full of women, there was no way to say it). I faced the dangling spider, and, as if seeing me too, it began to crawl back up its thread. That little sh*t, how dare he run from me twice!
My heart was racing as I moved forward. I got him in the cup and threw the paper over it. Oh god, I can feel his little spindly legs crawling inside! AHHHHHHH!!!!!! EWWWW! EWWWWW! EWWWWW! My coworker opens the door and I release him onto the sidewalk, free at last of his conniving little schemes. I then spent the entire day glancing above my head, determined that he had a gigantic family somewhere just out of eyesight, who were going to take their revenge by jumping on me.
And that is how I, RP, conquered my fear of spiders (for a brief 5 seconds, let's not get carried away here).
