Aragog

Warning: This post is not for the squeamish or the faint of heart. Seriously. If you don't like bug stories and/or have arachnophobia, you should not read this post. You have now been warned.

I don't think that I've mentioned the bugs here. But they're everywhere. I'm always finding them crawling on my skin, in my hair . . . it's really gross, actually. But you just can't get rid of them.

The worst are the spiders. I've seen some of the biggest spiders in my life here. They like to hide out in the bathroom. I get goosebumps just thinking about them. *Shiver*

Well, this afternoon, a daughter of Shelob decided to camp out on my bedroom ceiling. It scared me to see it up there, but I couldn't do anything about it, because I had to run to class.

When I got back to my apartment this evening, it was still there. Except it had moved to a different part of the ceiling. I was actually a bit relieved that it was still there. I know that sounds weird, but I was glad that I could see it, instead of being scared half-to-death that it was hiding out in my sheets.

So I decided to be brave and kill it. Except my version of bravery means throwing an old, empty contact solution case (which I had meant to throw out yesterday) at the spider on the wall, in hopes that it would move down just a bit so I could stand on a chair and then smash it with a cardboard cereal box.

Brilliant plan, I know.

But my aim's not very good. And when the case did hit close to the spider, the spider didn't even move. Or at least, so slightly that it didn't look as though it had moved at all. I threw the contact case at the spider at least a dozen times. And then, the spider fell down the wall and onto the floor.

I did what you'd expect me to do--I freaked out and tried smashing it with the heel of one of my pumps. Except the spider liked to hide in the corners of the baseboards, and I couldn't reach it. So I kept trying to scare it with my shoe so that it would move out into the open, and then smash it with something flat and heavy.

But the spider would have none of it and dashed off into a corner. I was too chicken to try and get it out, so I went over to Sarah and asked if she had any spider-killing tools. She grabbed two pieces of paper and then went over to the spider's "lair." She was going to get it to move out into the open (brave girl) and I was going to smash it with my flat and heavy object (a converter box).

We freaked out everytime the spider moved, but it was still running along the baseboards. Finally, Sarah prodded it just enough that it moved out onto the carpet. We were freaking out and moving away from it. I still had my pump and was hitting the floor frantically, trying to smash the spider.

And I did. A flood of relief washed over me.

And then Sarah started screaming. I thought it was because I had killed the spider and it looked really ugly on the carpet (it really, truly did. Yuck.). But then she cried, "Open up your sink! Turn on your sink! I need to wash my face!" She started splashing hot water onto her face, and then I realized: When I had smashed the spider, spider guts had splashed onto her!

Now it was my turn to scream. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!! So gross!!!!!!!! I felt so, so, SO bad. Sarah kept saying it was all right, but it's not! It's disgusting! Eww, eww, eww!!!!!

Anyway, there's the story. We killed Aragog. And it was probably the grossest thing that I've ever done in my life.

I'm still shivering all over. I hate spiders. "Why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies'?"