The One That Got Away (Not For Arachnophobes)

Image by Cayusa via Flickr

 

The scene: I was living in South Africa; visiting a friend; our husbands were working; neither of us had children then, but Julie did have a little dog called Pepi. 

Julie and I had eaten some of her scrummy food; had a good natter; drunk a little wine.  We sat together on her couch, watching a bit of tv.  The whole night, Pepi had been sniffing and scratching under and around the couch.

I went to the loo.  When I came back, Julie had moved the couch to see what Pepi was after – she said.  I saw the massive joke spider on the floor and laughed.  Pepi was sniffing at it. 

Julie: Why are you laughing?

Me: That’s a rubbish trick spider.

Julie: It’s real!

Me (laughing): Yeah, right.

Julie: It’s real; I swear. 

And to prove it, she took a telephone directory and threw it at the ‘spider’.  The book landed on the floor next to it and the ‘whump!’ of air made it fly up and land again, like a hairy frog.  It was obviously plastic.  Laughing really hard at Julie’s feeble attempt to scare me, I walked up to the spider and leaned down to pick it up, and that’s when it ran straight at me.

Julie screamed; I screamed; Pepi screamed; and all three of us jumped up onto the chairs, fidgeting and yelling like two women and a dog terrified of the biggest spider we’d ever seen.

Fortunately for us it was a Red Roman and they like to follow shadows, so it ran under the bottom of the front door and into the night.  We stayed on those couches for an hour; just to be sure.  Can you blame us?  Though they’re not poisonous, they eat mice.  We were skinny girls back then; you can’t be too careful.