the spider hunter

i'm not back yet, this is just a temporary post to tide myself over for my long trek to moose jaw.

I told carly that i would add to her nephew's adventures by sharing the following spider story:

last week, after we (anika, me, jm, andrew, and jacob) watched the planes land and helped the boys try to run through the planes' shadows, we decided to drive down to the other end of the runway. since jm had taken over chauffering duties from andrew, i climbed in the back of the corolla with andrew and jacob. (two QUEENS in the front would be entirely unfair to the back seat, yes, no? but i digress...) ah, yes, sitting in the back seat with the small one and the foot-fetish (albeit slightly blind) one...

jacob started bragging about the spider that he had caught in his itty-bitty hands. at first i didn't know whether or not to believe him because he is quite a tricky little seven year old, but he seemed genuinely proud of himself for capturing the alleged spider and bringing it on the car ride with us. i knew he wasn't bluffing when he offered to open his hands and show it to me. (he is way too smart to show his cards so early in the game if he was indeed bluffing!).

andrew, sitting in between us, didn't realize that jacob was a fearless spider hunter and thought jake was simply trying to make me scream, so he offered to take the spider from jacob's paws and pass it over to me. i think andrew's plan was to try and freak me out by pretending there was a spider and chucking the imaginary fiend at me.

no pretending was necessary. jacob, true to his word, dropped the very-real-live-and-scary spider into andrew's hands. unfortunately jacob's spider was much more wiggly than an imaginary spider would be, which made andrew shout with surprise and flail his hands about, sending the evil arachnid flying across the back seat, dangerously close to my royal person. this of course, set a variety of events into motion:

• me screaming like a banshee, trying to karate chop the elusive critter;
• anika screaming in the front seat, praying it wouldn't find it's way up front and also fearing for my life;
• jm trying to keep the car on the road and protect his increasingly fragile hearing from our peircing cries (jm, we are not responsible for lowering your marks on the WCB hearing test!);
• andrew, still slightly shocked at having a real, rather than imaginary, spider dumped on him, frantically looking around for it, while trying to appear calm and convince us that "it flew straight out the window!" (rrriiiiiiight...);
• jacob, laughing hysterically at the mayhem he caused-- taking delight in the fact that he couldn't even get in trouble for it-- he had told the truth!

PART II

On Sunday morning, we were all getting ready to go to lil' church. Queens get dibs on the bathroom, then guests are allowed a turn. I showered first (and used up just about all the hot water. iamashamed. sorry, sm), anika showered next, and then jm took a turn.

After only a few minutes, we heard a loud commotion and jm came running out of the bathroom shuddering and talking in short, unintelligable sentences about big spiders and the shower.

Of course, we thought he was just trying to freak us out, so i went into our ensuite to investigate. Sure enough, there was a dead (thank God!) tarantula the size of my shower poof lying in the corner. Naturally, this sent me screaming (and shaking) from the room.

Luckily, there were four other boys in the house who came to our rescue. Jacob-the-spider-hunter picked up the would-be-aggressor (hopefully with tp, i was too shook up to watch) and flushed the stupid bugger. *sigh*

Jacob, you are my hero. JM, i'm glad it was you instead of me (next time, please get rid of it, you are a boy!). Ani, i never want to shower again, what are we going to do?! Andrew, i'm sorry for running into you-- and continuing to scream. Dale, i'm sorry for losing my appetite and not being able to eat the delicious breakfast you made. Kyron, i exhort you to follow in Jacob's footsteps. Spider, you are dead, bwahaha.