Like Mother, Like Daughter

The other night, Ashlee came running out of her room saying, "Mom! There's a great big spider in my room!" My first thought was to say, "Oh, I bet he's friendly," and quietly sneak away, but being that Jere (my official spider killer) was not home at the time, I had to act like a brave mommy and go assess the situation at hand.

So I went to her room and asked her where she saw this alleged spider. She pointed down at her baseboard along the floor and said that it was hiding underneath. Great. A great big spider that is hiding where I can't see it. Introducing my number one fear in life: great big spiders that are hiding where I can't see them. Dang those stupid spiders! Nevertheless, I still had my brave face on. I waited a little while and when the spider didn't resurface, I told Ashlee that it probably ran away and won't be coming back. She replied, "But it will come out again, Mom! It's hiding from us! We've got to get some bug spray!"

Just then, I saw movement, and sure enough, the spider had resurfaced. Now this is not one of my proud moments as a mother, I assure you. I screamed at the top of my lungs. So Ashlee screamed at the top of her lungs and bolted from the room. All the screaming made the spider go back under the baseboard again. But now I was all creeped out because I had seen it's horrible and most terrifying legs and I was afraid to even move. Plus, I had bare feet and didn't want to risk squishing the awful beast should I have to take flight. So I kept my eyes fixated on the spot that it disappeared and called out to Ashlee that I needed her to come here and watch for the spider while I got something to spray it with. Instead of answering me, I saw her arm throw 2 squares of toilet paper into the room. Yeah. Two squares. OK, I wouldn't even squish a spider with an entire roll of toilet paper, let alone two squares. Great. I thought that if I could just spray it with some cleaner, it would probably shrivel up and die eventually but I didn't dare take my eyes off it's hiding spot because that would give it a chance to run somewhere else where I would stumble across it unknowingly . . . like inside the sleeve of my bath robe or something. So while all this is going through my head, the dumb thing comes out again. I grab Ashlee's little wooden chair and try to drop it right on the spider . . . and completely miss. This causes the spider to dart in fast, scary movements which causes me to scream again, which causes Ashlee (who was hiding in the bathroom) to scream again, which makes me scream again, which then causes Nick (who was watching TV) to start screaming. Complete mayhem for a minute. Now the spider is scared out of its wits and has gone back into hiding. I ran to the kitchen, grabbed my trusty spray cleaner, and sprayed the area in hopes of fumigating it to its death. I watched and waited for a few minutes and when nothing emerged, I decided put it all behind me and go back to watching TV.

Two days later, Jere emerged victorious with the great big spider . . . which was squished with two whole squares of toilet paper.