Stephanie Vs. The Spiders, Volumes I, II, and III

Since my husband is sick (and Sundays are usually crazy busy in our household), it's been a pretty uneventful day as far as banter is concerned.  So for your reading pleasure, I'm going to pull out an oldie, but a goodie.  While Kenneth from "30 Rock" may see the world entirely as muppets, this is a pretty accurate description on how *I* see the world.

Volume I: Stephanie Is Victorious

I am deathly afraid of spiders.  I don't know how or when it happened, it just did.  I remember being younger and killing spiders for my mother because she was too afraid to.  But those days are long gone, and now I stand alone to face my own fear.  All of those times I made fun of her, all those times I hid plastic spiders around the house to scare her, all of those times I would pick up daddy long legs and dangle them in her face...they are all coming back to haunt me now.  Now I am the one who needs someone to be my hero and kill my spiders.  Well, I decided that it had to stop.  It was time to face my fear and stop throwing my cat at the spiders.  Sure, he liked to play catch and release with them and loved to eat them, but we all knew that I wasn't just giving him a treat.  I was escaping my own personal hell.  But enough is enough.  It was high time I stood up for myself, my mom, and arachnophobics everywhere.  It was time that I killed my own spiders.

Besides, I was in a pickle and there was a tiny spider next to Spencer on the floor.  Really, it was out of necessity more than taking a stand against spiders.  But still!  I took out a baby wipe, and it was like everything slowed down.  I reared back and put that baby wipe up in the air.  My hand came crashing down swiftly like a bird of prey...and my prey was defeated.  Dead.  Smashed in a sea of imprinted teddy bears and unscented cleanser.  I had done it!  Take that, spiders!

It was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless!  It had been months--no--years!  Years since I had killed a spider myself!  I could feel myself standing about two inches taller, walking with a bit of a swagger, and holding my head up just a little bit higher.  Spiders?  Ha!  I laugh at spiders!  Later that day, I had to step out to take care of some errands.  When I came back, I entered through the kitchen and what met me upon my arrival?  Another spider!  Slightly bigger than the last one I had killed, but was I going to let that stop me?  Not a chance!  I picked my foot up (I still had my shoes on) and brought it down on that spider like a ton of bricks!  Not that I weigh a ton...or that bricks are even necessary to kill a spider.  Really one brick ought to do it, but that still seems a little ostentatious... No matter!  The point is, I was a spider killing machine, and nothing--no, nothing--could stop me now!

Volume II:  The Relapse

I felt invincible!  The world was at my fingertips!  There was nothing I couldn't do!  I called Kent to brag about my victories.  He said he was proud of me.  Well, of course he is!  Who wouldn't be?  A once withering excuse for an arachnophobic had single-handedly overcome her fear of spiders in a matter of just four short hours.  No more calling people to kill spiders for me, no more picking up my child and running to a different room, no more sending my cat to do my dirty work for me, no more waiting for my husband to get home...I was self-sustaining.  Those eight-legged furry beasts didn't stand a chance against the likes of me.  I dare any spider to try to cross my path!  Yes, the world was indeed at my fingertips and nothing could bring me down!

Nothing...except that!  As I was strutting about my house, I saw on my kitchen wall the biggest, ugliest, meanest spider I'd ever had the misfortune to lay eyes on!  No matter how hard I tried to maintain my new-found courage and vigor, it all melted away faster than a child's ice cream cone in the hot August sun.  I reverted back to my old self; scared, pathetic, and whimpering like a lost puppy dog.  It looked at me with all eight of its beady little eyes, its gigantic bulbous body, its long spindle-like hairy legs, and its humongous fangs.  This spider would put Tolkein's Sheilob to shame!  Ok, maybe it wasn't that big, but it was about as big as my thumb, which to any spineless arachnophobic is about as bad as it gets.  I was frozen in fear.  I could feel the blood draining from my face and the feeling slowly escaping my extremities.  My eyes became two giant saucers as I stared at the beast.  I couldn't watch, but I couldn't look away.  What an awful catch-22!  What could I do?  Of course, there was only one thing to do in a situation like this.  Swallow, take a deep breath, and scream like a little girl.

I stood there in the kitchen staring at the spider for what seemed like an eternity.  I broke into a nervous sweat, and began to panic!  What to do, what to do?  Should I kill it?  I can't kill it, I'm too scared to even get close to it!  Still, if I could just run out of the room long enough to grab one of my husband's giant shoes, surely that would be enough to silence the beast!  But I couldn't!  I couldn't move!  What if I left and came back and it was gone?  What if it crawled into one of my cabinets and decided to make my bread loaf its home?  No, the shoe was not the answer.  I know, cleaning supplies!  I was in a kitchen, the cupboard beneath the sink was full of cleaning supplies!  Yes, yes...that's what I'll do!  I'll get some Windex, or maybe some bath and tile cleaner!  Something full of ammonia!  Or bleach!  I'd kill that monster if it was the last thing I did!  But wait...what if it really was the last thing I did?  What if that wretched little beast literally scared me to death?  Or worse, what if the spray from the chemicals missed altogether?  What if he dodged the stream and made a run for it and hid in my walls only to come back out at night, crawl in my ear, and lay its disgusting little spider eggs in my brain?  No, no.  Cleaning supplies would not do the trick.  I know!  My cat, Debo!  "Debo!  Debo!"  I began to call for him.  That cat loves to eat spiders, surely he could muster up the energy to track down and kill this one for me!  But wait...the spider was up on the ceiling now!  Debo can't reach up that high!  Blast!  Debo, why couldn't you be eight feet tall?  Why?  Curse you, you small average sized cat, curse you for not being freakishly huge!!!

The sweat began to roll down my forehead and into my eyes.  It stung, but it was nothing compared to the fear that gripped me so badly that I couldn't even blink.  I was running out of ideas.  It looks like there was no option left but to call someone.  I'll call my Uncle Tim.  What's this?  Voicemail?  Oh well, my Paw Paw has never let me down before!  What?  He's not home???  Ben!  My brother Ben is fearless!  Besides, one look at his biceps and surely that spider would immediately surrender.  Yes, I'll call my mother and ask her if Ben can...wait, what's this?  He's working out at the YMCA (go figure)?  Oh no, mom.  You don't have to come over.  No really, it's not--drat!  My mother was coming over.  The only thing worse than one arachnophobic trying to kill a spider was two.  When there are two in the room, they begin to play off of each others' fears and ridiculous notions.  She and I would undoubtedly get so caught up in our own twisted version of reality that we would lose the spider altogether.  I had to think of something.  I know!  I'll yell at it!

"Hey!  You!  You stop crawling!  No, no!  Don't you dare go near my cabinets!  Stay out of there!"  But every time I yelled at it to try and scare it, it backfired.  With every sound that came out of my mouth, that angry little monster would just look right at my with its horrible little face, show its fangs, and point its first two legs at me like it was going to box me.  And win.

But wait...yes!  I know!  I had something in my arsenal that the beast did not!  I had a secret weapon so powerful, so frightening that there was no way that any spider would ever come lurking around our house again!  I had...a husband!  I quickly called Kent and asked him where he was (he was on his way home from work by now).  What?  Fifteen minutes away?  I had to stand in that kitchen with that relentless little monster for an entire quarter of an hour?  But there was no way I could ensure that it wouldn't crawl away or slip into the cabinet.  Or was there?  After I hung up with Kent, I got a brilliant idea.  Yelling at the spider couldn't kill it, but it did make it stop and stare at me!  If it's too busy looking at me, then it can't run away!  If I scream at this spider, it will undoubtedly resume it's boxing pose and try to murder me, but that was a risk that I just had to take!  So, I filled my lungs with as much air as I could, glared at my enemy with unfailing determination, and screamed at it!

The neighbors looking into my kitchen window were extremely confused, albeit quite entertained.

It was like time froze.  The second hand on the clock was moving slower and slower.  Why does fifteen minutes seem to fly by at any given time of the day, but now it seemed more like fifteen hours?  At long last, my husband finally gallantly walked through the door with the mail in his hand.  He came to the kitchen.  All I had to do was point.  He saw the beast, and honed in on him like a heat-seeking missile.  He raised that mail above his head with such power and such might, and brought it down on the beast with a loud thwack!  I couldn't bare to watch.  I had my eyes closed so tightly and a small, tired voice escaped my lips with just enough energy to utter the three most important words of my life:

"Is it dead?"

Volume III:  The Last Laugh

My husband stood over the beast's body, triumphantly.  After a torturing twenty minutes, the spider was finally gone!  We had done it!  We were victorious!  I threw my arms up in the air in celebration, and brought them down around my husband's waist and pulled him close to me.  He had never looked more attractive to me than he did in that moment.  I wanted to call everyone I know, wake Spencer up, open up the windows, and shout to the world that the beast was dead!  We walked into the living room, my champion and I, wondering what conquest we might take on next.  But for now it was time to rest and revel in the victory at hand.  All spiders beware:  Kent Keck is mighty and takes no prisoners!  Such joy filled the house as we stood there weary from battle.  Though our bodies were weak, our spirits were high and nothing could bring them down.

I should really stop using that phrase.

As I stood there, I happened to catch a glimpse of something white out of the corner of my eye.  I looked at this white mass on my wall, trying to discern what it could possibly be.  I slowly and carefully stepped closer and closer, glaring and squinting at this thing on my wall.  What could it be?

I was only a couple of feet away from the wall when it hit me.  I could feel the fear gripping me tightly once more, and my feet filled up with lead.  My mouth opened, but no words came out.  My husband came rushing to my side to catch me just before I hit the floor.

"What is it?" he asked.

I pointed up and managed to squeak out, "A nest!"

Though he was exhausted from battling the giant, thumb-sized spider, from the deapths of his constitution Kent managed to muster up the strength and courage to do battle once more.  If we could get rid of that nest, then all of our problems with these wretched monsters will surely go away!  As Kent lunged for the nest weilding a paper towel, a vision of a thousand tiny spiders crawling out of that mass flooded my thoughts.  What if as he grabbed the nest, he disturbed them and they all came out in a burst of black hair and fangs?  I had already had enough traumatic experiences for the day, I couldn't handle one more.  But before I had a chance to say anything, Kent had already grabbed the nest and begun to peel it off the wall.  A sickening crunch filled the room.  Through my fingers, my eyes could barely make out my husband's figure, as he stood eerily still.  I took my hands down from my face.  I looked around.  No spiders were crawling up the walls!  He had done it again!  My hero!  My white knight!  I was so elated!  But he just stood there and stared at the nest in his hand.

"What's wrong Kent?" I asked.  After all, he should be rejoicing!

He slowly looked up at me, mouth open, lips turned downward, and a look in his eyes that I'd never seen before.  He swallowed hard before he managed to whisper:

"It's empty!"