The Spider Hunt

It’s about 1:00 am and I’m sleeping on the couch. Not because I’ve had a spat with my beloved, but because I always fall asleep on the couch. It will be around 11:00 pm and Rob will still be wide awake and settling into an episode of the Simpsons or How It’s Made, or he’s in the office on the computer and I’m trying to read on my own… I just can’t make myself go to bed even when I’m tired. I think it’s a weird sort of guilt I have because it seems wrong to go to sleep before Rob does.

Anyway, so Rob comes to wake me up as usual and we head upstairs. Our living room is open to the hallway that leads to the bedrooms. The kids love it because they can sneak out and watch TV if they’re really quiet (but we usually catch them), or throw things down to the living room from the railing like little toy parachute guys or dirty laundry.  As I walk across the hallway to check on the kids I notice that there is a creepy black spider on the far wall above the windows and mention it to Rob. He immediately concocts a plan. “You throw some socks at the spider to knock it down, and I’ll stand in the living room with a wad of toilet paper ready to scoop him up when he hits the ground.” I’m so tired, but I say, “ok” because he is already grabbing socks from his drawer and rolling them into tight balls. I take a practice shot at the opposite side of the wall so I can see how to best get the little guy. It bounces off the ceiling before even hitting the wall. This makes me start laughing, and Rob is down in the living room going, “I think a practice shot was a good idea.” I give up on practicing and just start lobbing sock balls at the spider. He’s just a few inches down from the ceiling, so I can’t use an arc, it has to be a straight shot. This is harder than I thought. After several rounds of misses I am laughing so hard at my terrible aim that I’m not even hitting the wall anymore. Rob and I agree to switch posts. He remarks, “I wish we had our own videographer.”

He comes upstairs and hands me the five squares of toilet paper for the squishing job. I say, “I think I would have gotten a bit more.” But I don’t get more just to show that I’m as tough as my husband. He takes a few shots and misses too. I throw the socks back up to him for another round, and this time on the second shot he knocks the spider down. I run for the spider after watching it land on the carpet. I’m thinking, “I should have put shoes on! This guy is fast.” I start yelling, “He’s so fast!” And Rob yells, “Don’t go straight up and down, smear him!” Then, after a long three seconds, I successfully smoosh the spider without smearing him into the carpet, and show Rob my handiwork. Finally, I flush the remains and we both head upstairs back to bed and I say, “We could have won $10,000.00 if we had that on tape.”