the most terrifying experience of my life

let me tell you about what happened on monday.  i wasn't going to post this but when i told my mother the story she told me it needed to be recorded and then my shameless brother walter heard it through the grapevine and made mention of it on my facebook wall so i figured all was lost anyways.  i guess i really don't care who knows, as long as it's not my honey.  but he doesn't read this, so no worries there.

monday morning, baby and i went to our neighborhood pool with new friend kirstyn and her daughter.  when we got home, i put baby on the floor to play and then went to roll the pack n play over to block off the stairs.  hiding right underneath it was the most gigantic spider i have ever seen outside of a zoo!  i about died!  i had a major panic attack.  i'm actually getting the sweats right now just thinking about it.  i don't like bugs or spiders or snakes of any sort under any condition but spiders are the worst and having something surprise me in my own home like that is more than i can bear.  i felt violated and terrified.

if my honey was home i would have just had him dispose of it, as was clearly discussed in our prenuptial agreement.  you think i'm kidding?  i am not.  nothing is written but it was a verbal agreement and i remember it vividly as if it was last night.  i told my dear christopher that if we were going to be married (this conversation actually took place before we were engaged... because some things you just need to agree upon before furthering your relationship), one of the things i required of my future husband was that he take care of any bug, insect, spider, creature, dead or alive, and dispose of it properly (that means, flushing it down the toilet.  it can not remain within the walls of our home) without any hesitation or complaining.  for the past five years he has done a phenomenal job in this regard and it has never been a real problem... until this past year.  since i'm home during the day when he's gone, i've had to do some solo pest control out of sheer necessity and my duty as a mother to protect my young from [eating] these leggy pests.

well, i knew i couldn't take care of it myself but i did entertain the idea for a bit.  there was no way the situation would wait until my hero of a husband got home from work.  i brainstormed.  i called my honey at work and explained the problem.  i wish i could have recorded that phone call.  he was nice although audibly annoyed that i called him at work to tell him i found a spider.  honestly, i'm not sure what i was expecting.  it's not like he could kill it through the phone.  and he wasn't going to come home on his lunch break to take care of it for me.  he told me to put a trash can over it.  i told him it had moved against the wall.  he told me bye.  i called kirstyn.  as if she would want to reload her kid in a carseat to drive back to my house to kill a spider.  i didn't care.  that's what friends are for.  but she didn't even answer.  i was paralyzed with fear.  so i went to the garage and put on his pair of tennis shoes.  i walked back in the kitchen and looked more than twenty feet away to wear the spider was still hanging out.  i went back to the garage and got a trashcan.  i took it back to the spot twenty feet away.  there was just no way.  i went back to the garage and took the shoes off.

i put on my flip flops and marched to my next door neighbor's house, knocked on the door, and prayed someone would be home and that they would have no fear of spiders.  this family is a wonderful family that is in our ward.  the husband used to be bishop but now he's in the stake presidency.  he travels a lot for work and is rarely home.  the wife doesn't seem like the spider loving type and neither do their two daughters.  no one was answering.  i prayed for a miracle and started to walk away.

then it happened!  the husband answered the door!  i have never been so relieved in my life!!!  i told him i had two favors.  "#1, i need you to come kill a spider for me" [he laughs] "you can laugh all you want, i don't care, but i neeeed you to kill that spider." [he says okay and we start to walk over to my house] "and #2, you have to promise not to tell chris.  he would be so ashamed and embarassed."  so we walked over,  the spider had moved a bit but wasn't hard to find.  he admitted that he was surprised it was a very good sized spider and asked for a paper towel.  i gave him a whole role.  he went over and cleaned it up like it was a smudge on a mirror.  i thanked him with all my heart and told him i required that spiders be flushed.  but we both decided it would not be wise to flush such a giant wad of paper towels.

so being the gentleman that he is, he carried that wad of paper towels, complete with dead spider and all, back to his house, while he asked me how i developed such a terrible fear of spiders.  good question because i used to play with them when i was in elementary school and by the time i was in fifth grade, i couldn't even briefly look at a picture of ants, much less a spider or a snake or roach.  yuck roaches.  so throughout the whole experienced i thanked him as if he had just risked his life to save my first born from a burning building.  i honestly think this was more impressive because really, i can deal with flames.  i wish i could repay him.  i told him i'm going to do his yard work and weeding and that i'm excessively grateful, but that there's a good chance this won't be the last time i call for a favor of this nature.

i have since asked serveral people if i can call them should i ever experience a similar situation.  i also went to walmart last night and bought the biggest size of spider spray you've ever seen.  it comes with a money back guarantee and says it's supposed to work for 9 months.  i had asked my dear honey if we could call the exterminator and he said no.  so this is the best i've got.  because it's been a few days and i'm still jumpy and cautious and breaking out in sweats every time i see a chocolate chip on the floor.  i've also decided i need to get pregnant ASAP with a boy so that i can raise him to do this sort of stuff for me.  and then i will home school him and keep him by my side until he goes to college.  and by that point we'll be so filthy rich i'll have a whole staff of help including chefs and maids and chauffeurs and bug killers that will continually monitor my home and make sure anything with less than two legs or more than four is not allowed.  i thought about just moving to an apartment in the city but that plan was less appealing for me.  i'll let you know how things go with that.

needless to say, it's been a little bit tense around here.