Today, I was engaged in a fierce battle. With an equal, or perhaps, stronger opponent.
It took all my creativity and expert agility to get that damn spider.
You see, killing it is easy. Catching it and throwing it out humanely is the real challenge. And no, throwing it out a window isn't going to kill it. If a real human being like Spiderman can survive, imagine what an actual spider can do... it's probably (spoiler alert) on a ship halfway across the Atlantic Ocean by now. If ships are still a thing.
Anyway, it was the size of your fingertips (yes, your fingertips in particular), and moved like lightning, but slightly slower.
It all started when I was playing
As I
My human instinct immediately cried, "Kill, Kill! Pick up that newspaper and smack it into the middle of next week!"
I didn't listen to it though. The human brain doesn't adhere to logic when it's panicking. You can't just smack something into the middle of next week, brain! Current scientific developments don't allow for time travel, and even if they did, the technology would be too valuable to use for something so inconsequential. I do wonder what I'd do if I had time travel, though. I think the first thing I'd do is probably -
You know, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll get to time travel in a future post. (HA. Get it?)
Back to the situation, then. I didn't listen to my brain's killer instinct, mostly because I was sort of frozen. And also because I hate having insect carcasses on newspapers with half-finished crosswords. I like crosswords. Every time I saw Garfield swat a spider with a newspaper, my insides wrenched a little.
Spidey (yep, I've named him. let it never be said that I don't develop characters in my stories) got away somehow, so I decided to get my bed as far away from the desk as possible. Not that I'd ever sleep now, under the threat of being crawled upon. I cleared the desk, mind working overtime as I analyzed my resources.
Jackpot.
I found an empty sandwich bag and an empty toilet paper tube. Don't ask me what they were doing on the desk.Luck favored me then, as spidey got onto my notice board and settled itself onto a piece of paper. I pulled the little plastic bag over one end of the tube to make a one-way trap and waited.
I stood there for a couple of minutes (it was actually twenty minutes), and when I had decided that Spidey wasn't going to move, I brought the hollow tube down onto the spider as quick as I could.
Success.
At first I wasn't sure if I'd got it, as it wasn't in sight. I shook it a bit and peered into the plastic-enclosed end while keeping the other end firmly against the notice board. Sure enough, it crawled round and round in that tube, with both ends blocked off.
This bought me enough time to ponder what I should do next. The sandwich bag wasn't big enough to seal with the toilet roll in it, and I didn't have a bigger bag within arm's length. I knew where Spidey had to go - I'd had the foresight to open the window. The problem was, I couldn't get it from desk to window without exposing it to the open air, which I couldn't risk, because Spidey had some serious pace.
So how did I do it?
I panicked, that's how.
Spidey wasn't too dull itself; it found a way between the toilet roll and the sandwich bag and crept between. Unwilling to come into any contact with it, even with plastic in between, I dropped the entire package.
Sheer luck ensured that the roll landed upright, so Spidey remained inside. I reacted quick enough to slap the nearest newspaper on top of the tube (crossword and all) and wrap it around, and out the window went it all.
Despite the victory, I don't feel superior at all.
I'm probably going to be awake all night, feeling itchy.
PS. My only consolation is that there was no sequel.
