Spider Dance

Remember doing your first spider dance?  I don't.  There have been so many of them that they all blur together.  But I've done them - no shame here!

There was that one time when it got dangerous.  I was a junior in high school on my way to some event at school.  I had a change of clothes in the front seat with me - shoes included.  I only remember this because when the spider lowered himself quickly from the rear view mirror and hung in mid-air at eye level I nearly killed myself when I swerved while doing a version of the spider dance.  Seriously.  I crossed the median.  Lucky for me the shoes next to me were available.  I drove up the curb while slamming on the brakes and used my shoe to attack the spider.  The rear view mirror fell off and I lost the spider.  I shudder at the memory.

Since moving to Texas I have really come a long way in ridding my life of the spider dance.  It had to be done.  It's only practical.  There are just too many spiders.  And they're big.  And they are everywhere.  Jumping around and slapping yourself in public isn't cool.

Needless to say I had severe deja vu last week when I was driving home from my lunch date with Martin.  We totally pigged out and I was feeling it when out of the corner of my eye it dropped to eye level.  Not from the mirror either - not a safe distance.  It was dangling from my driver side window - inches!  It hung there and I swerved - no shoe.  It took every ounce of self control to stay in my lane.  I took the next exit and ended up in some parking lot of some company.  I must have blacked out.

Anyhoo, by the time I had the car stopped, the spider had crawled across my visor and the rear view mirror and disappeared somewhere in the car.

I got out.  I looked for a weapon.  Nothing. Suddenly it was back near the driver's side. Ok, so this monster was not gigantic size.  I'm going to say quarterish - with it's legs curled in.  I had the door open and waited him out.  He eventually climbed out onto the roof.  I got a good look.  His legs were clear and he had black pincers that were snapping.  Yeah.  I tried to find a comparable photo and this was the best I could do.

When it was safe I dived back into the car and slammed the door and peeled out.  Hopefully by the time I hit 70 mph that little dude had blown off.  I can only hope.  Shudder.