The One That Got Away

So I'm a little behind in my posting and there's much to catch up on, such as the classic car show that hit Monterey a few weeks ago that had Ian drooling and me fascinated by tourists who actually dressed like caricatures of JCrew models. Other things to catch up on in forthcoming posts: trip to Utah, visit from Claire. These, with appropriate pictures and fascinating narration of course, to come. But not today.
This morning a hideous thing happened to me and I have not yet fully recovered and thus I have to keep this short because as soon as I tell my twisted tale of woe I will most certainly have to go lie down. Everyone has their own personal brand of crazy and I'm about to let you in on mine. Here it goes:
I exited the shower this morning, as with any normal work day, and began my morning post-shower routine: dry off, wrap hair, use Qtips, insert contacts, moisturize, comb hair... You get the idea. It's all very scientific, I know. So as I am in the midst of step 7, and I see movement in the mirror-- just over my right shoulder. Immediate freeze.
What do mine eyes behold descending from the ceiling not three inches from my bathrobed body? Yup, you guessed it: an arachnid. (Unless you didn't guess that. Maybe you guessed another something that can descend from a ceiling... I'm not sure I want to know.) Anyway, it's just casually moving on its hair like butt string thing down the entire length of my bathroom literally centimeters from me. (When I get really scared I go metric.) Had I been just a smidge to the left it would have touched my arm. At which point I might have passed out and hit my head on the Chevron floor (our bathroom floor resembles Chevron bathroom tile: Industrial strength. Steely gray with a mauve border. Super c-l-a-s-s-y) and died.
So I turn to look at it in the flesh since so far I've only seen it in the mirror and I determine that it is indeed an offending spider but that I need to psych myself into believing it's not too big or crunchy for me to kill with a tissue because that is the only option. (Some are. Some are so big and crunchy that I only stand a chance of approaching it with a giant boot. Some are too big and/or crunchy and/or high above my head for the boot and require the bug sucker vacuum. The one from Sky Mall. I have it. Seriously. Ian bought it for me because: a) he loves me and would never want me to be uncomfortably confronted by and forced to defend myself from my biggest fear with just a flimsy tissue, b) he got so sick of me making him kill a spider every time I saw one-- which was sometimes in the middle of the night, and c) I literally asked for it during every flight when I'd thumb through Sky Mall and say, "I need that!")
Thankfully step 4 of the morning routine (contacts) was already complete or I may have never spotted the dang thing until it landed on me and tried to eat me or carry me away to its giant mate or bury its young in my skin or something. GAH!
So the thing is now like waist level and I have to kill it. This is very hard because my entire body is rigid and every hair is standing on end and my mouth is dry and my palms and feet are sweaty and my heart is racing and yet I have to somehow convince myself to reach AROUND it and grab a tissue. And I do. Yay! Triumph. But in doing so I have to avert my eyes from freakin' leggy satan and when I go back to find him, he's gone. Tragedy. Only I know he's NOT really gone, because they don't just happily disappear like that or I wouldn't have any problem with them at all. But my bathroom rug is off-white and said spider is daddy-longlegs-tan, so he's now camouflaged in his mid-air flight against the backdrop of the rug as I look down to find him. I scan the entire area for movement. Nothing. He has escaped.
People, this is the worst thing that can happen to a spider phobe. There is nothing more terrifying than knowing a spider is inches from you but not being able to see it or do a single thing about it. Except run. So I did. I fled the scene and got dressed and did everything I could outside of the bathroom. But eventually I had to return to the scene. I scanned the room but no sign of him.
So now he's loose in my house somewhere-- probably in my bed or slippers or the shirt I plan to wear tomorrow, plotting his attack on me and laying eggs. And I'm here, sharing this house with him, and he doesn't pay rent and probably had a party here while I was gone, and every three seconds I swear I feel something crawling on me and have to thwack at my arm or leg or back like some kind of Tourette's sufferer. And all night I will feel this way. There will be no sleep for me... Even though I vacuumed and scanned every ceiling corner and crevasse in every room. And tomorrow when I go back in for the shower routine I won't be able to close my eyes because I will be convinced that he is still in there... lurking, probably on spider steroids and twice as big as he was today. It's irrational, I know. I'm bigger/he's harmless/he's more scared of me... blah blah blah. As if a phobia was ever rational. That's the whole point of phobias. Just like the whole point of bug sucker vacuum marketing is to reel in people like me to pay $59.95 for a glorified dust buster.

So. There you have it. To some, a crazy reaction to an innocuous creature. To me, perfectly normal.