I visited a friend’s house on the mountain last night. I’d parked on the side of a dirt road and used the torch on my phone to tentatively pick my way down her driveway in the pitch blackness of our non-lit community.
As I started my car, a huge spider crawled lethargically up the windscreen right in front of my face. It disappeared under the sun visor.
“It was on the OUTSIDE of the windscreen,” I recited in a hysterical mantra all the way home. But I couldn’t be sure. I couldn’t be f#$king sure. Had I seen its belly or its back? All I’d noticed in my trauma was eight, long hairy legs and a fat torso with two prominent fangs sparkling in the moonlight.
If the spider decided to make a wanton cameo appearance during the drive home, I would surely drive over the edge of the mountain and hurtle down in a fiery ball of metal and gangly, arachnid legs.
“It’s only a bloody spider, Pinky,” I told myself, white knuckles gripping the steering wheel. “What’s the worst it can do? Bite me? Haha! F#$k you, Mr Spidey! ”
I felt a strange tickle on my ankle and swerved in blind panic, skidding on the gravelly verge and seeing my life flash before me.
Stomping the floor in unbridled terror, I sped up, careering around the mountain’s snaking bends, finally reaching my street.
I worried that if the spider was still lurking outside the car it might scuttle in when the door opened. Or worse, it might jump on me as I exited. Maybe it blew off in the wind? Maybe it flew off the car five kilometres ago? Maybe not...
Screeching up our driveway, I slammed on the brakes a millimetre from the garage door and hunched, shuddering, frozen to my seat, praying that Scotto would come out to greet me like he usually did.
His face at last appeared from behind the front door; the dogs spilling out after him, excited for their pre-bedtime wee.
Pressing my face against the car window, I knocked desperately on the glass to get his attention.
Scotto’s expression changed from sleepy to mildly curious.
As he approached my car in the dim light, I rapped frantically, mouthing the words ‘HELP ME… GOD! PLEASE HELP ME! BUT DON’T OPEN THE DOOR!!!! DON’T OPEN THE F#$KING DOOR!’
Before I could stop him, he yanked open the driver seat door, grinning naively.
“Get the f$#k out!” I shrieked, violently pushing him aside, leaping like a whirling dervish from the car. “Shut the f$#king door. Shut the door!”
Scotto spun around with panic in his eyes. The dogs froze, legs cocked in the air, eyeing me in alarm.
“There’s a f#$king s-s-s-spider!” I hissed, frantically thrashing my body and hair like someone on crack attempting to do the Macarena.
Scotto’s face instantly morphed into Liam Neeson.
“Go inside, Pinky,” he muttered in a rich and deep, Irish brogue and braced his shoulders with manliness.
I scarpered in the front door as he followed me towards the pantry with determination oozing from every macho pore.
“I don't know who you are. I don't know what you want,” he chanted. “But what I have are a very particular set of skills. If you leave now, that'll be the end of it. I will not look for you, I will not pursue you. But if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.”
He grabbed a can of Mortein Extra Strength.
I sat in bed, eyes all googly in fear and constantly checking there was no spider hiding in my hair when Scotto came in.
He’d discovered the malignant creature, evilly burrowed inside the handle of the passenger door, safe from the wind and concealing itself until malevolent opportunity arose.
Now its remains were spread over our driveway like vegemite on toast. Itsy Bitsy spider was in itsy bitsy bits.
Some people might think we’re cruel.
After all, a spider is much smaller than we are. The spider is probably more scared of us than we are of them.
Well… I don’t think that’s true. I mean, has a spider ever told you that?
No?
I didn’t think so.
