This morning I found out just how useless my pampered, overfed, spoiled, prima donna house cat actually is. As I was getting ready for work I flicked on the closet light and opened the door and there, staring me right in the face was the ugliest spider I have ever seen in doors. The damn thing just sat there and gave me the Clint Eastwood stare down. I will also note right here that said spider was on the old boy’s side of the closet which automatically leads me to believe (read: blame) that the sucker was brought in by him. I very quietly backed out, closed the door and shut off the light. I am well aware how quickly something with that many legs can move and I did not want to risk grabbing my bag and clothing while Spidy was in obvious attack mode. What the heck is Plan B here? I can’t go to work with my pajamas on? My clothing and car keys are in there being guarded by a spider with longer legs than me! I went downstairs to make my coffee and try to calm down and come up with a plan. I go back up to the closet and open it and low and behold he has moved – to my side of the closet! Ah crap. I again, back out and close the door. Then I look at the bed. Hmmm. Old boy is snoring and I do not have enough time to wake him and explain the severity of the situation. He would be all “you woke me up for that?” Then I look over to my side of the bed. Shouldn’t that very large bed hog who is sprawled out at the end of the bed, snug as a bug, be more concerned about the creature lurking in the closet? So I poke him a few times and tell him to “get the spider”, “do your job and get the crazy ass spider before it starts a colony in my clothing” and “come on, pleassseee”. I have been joking as of late that the cat is acting like a teenager right now and I tell ya, this was it! In response to my poking and pleading I got absolutely NOTHING! He didn’t even open his eyes! Why the heck he was so tired, I have no idea? It’s not like we have a cat door and he was out marking his territory on the neighbourhood all night or carousing with his buddies. What the heck is he good for if he can’t rid our home of the occasional arachnid? I would have retrieved the other, smaller feline from the boy’s room but I am pretty sure this spider could take her.
Plan C appears to be me stretching my body into the closet, all the while keeping one eyeball on the freak show on the floor, and grabbing my bag and any clothing I could reach. Once I had all the items I needed I went back into the bathroom, carefully shook out all articles of clothing before putting them on, just in case Spidy had a decoy hiding somewhere in the fabric, and got the hell outta the bedroom. I write the old boy a very nice note telling him that we have a huge, huge visitor camping out in our closet and if he can’t get the lazy, good for nothing, teenage cat to do the job he better get a vacuum because the sucker is to big to squish and will surely leave a mark big enough to chalk outline. (I find out an hour after getting to work that he did not even give the whole calamity a second thought because he “would have to take the whole closet apart to find it.” Yah? What’s the issue? Seriously.)
So I get to work all twitchy and uptight and whom do I discuss this with? No one. I can’t say a word. If I relayed this little story anywhere within a football fields hearing length of my co-worker, who incidentally has a pathological fear of spiders, she would need to go home to ingest Adivan and red wine. So I sit at the office wondering where Spidy is hiding and if I can stop by the nearest firehall to borrow a hazmat suit so I can take care of him myself. Don’t predict I will get much sleep tonight unless I have a carcass safely encased in my vacuum cleaner. Stupid nature.
