30 Days of Writing - Spiders

Spiders are icky. There, I said it. I don't like them and have no real reason except that the are icky.

Now, spiders are fascinating. I have been known to sit and watch one build a web, spinning that sticky thread and somehow knowing exactly how to create an architectural marvel.

But, they are icky and need to be squished by somebody other than me.

When I was in college, my parents moved from the city out into the country where we went from sirens in the night and robberies in the day to hoot owls and plant-eating deer. With this change came an influx of countrified critters. The place was crawling with lizards, snakes, and spiders. These spiders weren't your little cob-web making babies. They were tarantula like, hairy, and big.

They also liked music, at least one of them did.

My car had been parked in front of the house and I hopped in it one day to drive into town for my summer job. Immediately I noticed that my stereo was on. This car had a stereo that was hard wired and did not need the ignition to be on in order to work. You had to pull out the knob in order to turn on the machine. I looked and the knob was out and hanging from it were dozens of little shiny spider trails. The force that it must have taken to have pulled that knob out must mean that there was a monster sized spider somewhere in my car.

Steeling up my courage, I glanced around the car to see if I could spot the culprit. Perhaps it was wearing a band-tour t-shirt and holding a stadium cup full of beer. No such luck. I couldn't find any further evidence and knew that I had to get moving or be late for work.

My drive to work involved taking the highway for part of the distance since we now lived in the "boonies." As luck would have it, just as I entered a cloverleaf ramp, the big hairy spider jumped from behind the dash onto the passenger seat floor mat. Now, I had to face the dilemma of driving safely onto the highway or crushing the hairy menace seated next to me.

The spider made the choice for me as he slowly started to come in my general direction. I tried to not wreck the car as I searched for a way out of the moving vehicle. Faced without many options (naturally, pulling over wasn't in my stupid teen-age head) I decided to step on the spider before it crossed the divider and was at my feet. What didn't occur to me was how difficult this was going to be. So, there I found myself trying to drive with my left foot and stomp the spider with my right. What made this extra interesting was the fact that I drove a manual car and had to desert the clutch and reach over the gear shift with my right leg in order to have a stomping chance. The fact that I was on a ramp worked in my favor as I couldn't have any cars on my sides to careen into as I erratically wove my way around the ramp's turn.

The spider was a faster thinker than I was and saw my gestures coming. He probably wet himself laughing as he quickly jumped back up behind the dashboard after eluding my first two or three stomps. Frustrated, I settled back into proper driving position and entered the highway with my stow-away passenger.

He never reappeared or turned back on my stereo. But I always listened first to see if any music was playing before I got into that car again.

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This 30 Days of Writing Challenge is brought to you courtesy of Nicky and Mike. They managed to convince a bunch of us to play along. If you want to read more cheesy posts, check out the ramblings of the crazy gang listed on the Linky thing at the latest post at We Work for Cheese.