i knew they were out to get me

This morning I was in bed, and I wasn’t quite asleep, but I didn’t feel like getting up quite yet either. So I guess we can say I was being lazy. It’s Saturday, so I’m sure that’s allowed. Anyway, I was on my side, kind of staring at the wall, thinking about what I might do when I did get out of bed. I looked out the window and it seemed sunny outside so I thought I could get dressed and take the dog to the park. That was as far as my day-planning went, because right around the time I formed that thought, I felt something on my arm. I wasn’t overly concerned, but I glanced at my arm and didn’t see anything. So I went back to looking at the wall. But then that something-on-my-arm feeling became more insistent, more like whatever was on my arm was in motion. I looked again, and this time I could see something by my elbow. It was pale, and it looked sort of like lint. There’s a white blanket on my bed and it wouldn’t be completely bizarre for it to be blanket fuzz, I figured, but then I noticed that the lint was crawling up my arm toward my shoulder. That’s weird, I thought. I squinted at the fuzz and saw that there was a knot in the middle, from which thinner fuzz tendrils extended, and those fuzz tendrils were moving in a rather coordinated way and I thought “I don’t think that’s lint.” I moved my head closer and my sleepy brain finally pieced it all together and yelled “SPIDER! SPIDER!” And then I thought “Spider? What? That is one weird-looking spider.” I argued with myself a little bit as the spider-lint continued its climb up my arm, and finally noticed that it wasn’t white, but more like a very very pale green, and the bits I thought were fuzz tendrils extending from a center knot were actually rather spindly legs extending from a SPIDER’S BODY. AAAAHHHH! SPIDER ATTACK! I’M GONNA DIE!

So I did what any reasonable person would do in such a situation. I flicked the spider off my arm and then looked to see where it landed. It ended up on the side of my mattress and hung on there for a minute before getting its bearings and beginning its ascent back toward me. Contrasted against the sheets, it was definitely green and definitely a spider — how did I ever think that was lint? am I dumb or do I just need to get my eyes checked? — and IT WAS CLIMBING TOWARD MY FACE. I sat up quickly. There was no way I was going to allow my face to be eaten off by a spider. Not this morning. Not ever. Once I was sitting, I couldn’t see my enemy anymore. Where did it go? I looked over to my side, and saw that the spider was about to finish scaling the side of the mattress. I couldn’t allow that, because if it got on the same level as I was, there was no telling where it would hide.

I brushed at it with my hand but I missed and it paused its climbing. “Get off my bed, spider,” I whispered, then brushed at it again. I hit it that time, but I only managed to move it about an inch over to the left, and once I knocked it to its new spot, it started climbing faster. Determined little bugger. I slid away to the end of my bed and got up, fully intending to attack it from behind once I was no longer trapped by my mattress, but once I was up, I couldn’t see it anymore. Had it fallen to the floor? Found a place to hide in my bedding? It could be anywhere. Bastard.

I’m pretty sure that if I were ever to make a list of least favorite things that have motivated me to get out of bed, spider attack would easily be in the top five. It’s still not as bad as waking up and thinking “Oh no, I believe I have food poisoning,” but still worse than “Hmmm… I seem to have slept through my alarm and am now two hours late.”

Anyway, hope you have a fantastic Saturday, kittens. I will probably spend much of the day trying not to flip out every time a stray hair brushes against my arm, like what happened five minutes ago. So it’s going to be really exciting over here, is what I’m saying. Cheers.