how i spent my friday night while Reptile Wrangler was still out of town

                                                                           ta rant u la!

With a giant hairy emphasis on RANT! Because, that is just what I did on the phone, with college girl Rachel, while I watched this THING crawl around.... In.side.my.house!!! 

This is how my evening went. I was quietly sitting in my chair, watching my programs on t.v., working on my stitching project until pretty late into my friday night. At about 11, I started feeling tired and decided to turn out the lights and head for bed. So, I scooted forward on the chair and bent over to reach down and put my project in the box that was on the floor. Just as I did that, from between my feet, that thing darted out. I.kid.you.NOT!

 I'm pretty sure I moved even faster than I have ever moved before. It sat there in the middle of the rug for a few minutes. I spun around in circles, sort of marching but more like jogging, freezing in place like when you're playing freeze tag and just got tagged "you're it", sweating jets like I have never sweated jets before, grabbed my car keys and then decided against leaving because "where would that thing be when I decided to come back?"(if ever), reciting all those bad creepy wildlife words that I have newly acquired in my vocabulary, all the while alternating flapping my arms up and down to wringing my hands in front of me, while saying (in between those bad creepy reptile words) "ohmygod,ohmygod, whatamigoing to do?, ohno,ohno,ohno, ohcrap, shoot, shoot, ohno, ohno, ohno"!!!!!!!!

So, I did what any panic driven Wranglerista would do when staring at a humongous bleepin' tarantula  sitting smack dab in the middle of your family room, while HGTV's House Hunters International is on the television...I grabbed my phone and called my daughter. 

Whether it had something to do with the fact that... 

a. I was alone in the house and b. I had fulfilled my Wrangling skills for the week and c. my reserve and tolerance for having to use those skills was empty and d. do I need any other reason...

to say that a full on panic situation ensued while I was on the phone with her is keepin' it real.

She became the adult trying to calm me and instruct me as to the best way to deal with this horrible awful creature. Here are some of the highlights...

Her. "Mom calm down."

Me. "I can't. It's huge."

Her. "Go get the biggest Tupperware out of the cupboard and put it over the top of it."

Me. "I can't do that. The bowl isn't big enough...I can't get that close to it to put the bowl over it."

Her. "Mom, calm down. Yes you can. Just get one with a lid so you can trap it, then turn it over and put the lid on it. Do you want me to come home?"

Me. "No, you're too far away. Yes, do you want to spend the night? I'm not putting a lid on it."

Her. "Why not put a lid on it?"

Me. "Because it might crawl up my arm and into my hair! I'll just put the bowl over it, put something heavy on top and leave it until Dad gets home."

Her. ....laughter....

Her. after reminding me to get a picture..." Mom, please put your camera on video. This will be the next big YouTube hit!"

Me. "No I don't want to be on YouTube!!"

Her. "Do you want me to call Mr. blank? ( dad of her friend who lives in the neighborhood)"

Me. "Noooo....it's too late. They'll think I'm a crazy person."

Me. "I'll go get my grabber thingy."

Me. (while reaching very far towards it and activating the trigger) "SCREAM" (start to cry now) "SCREAM AGAIN"... "I missed it! It's crawling and moving towards the chair".

So, it went under the chair, which pretty much foiled the plan of putting something over it (not that THAT was going to happen anyway.  And then it crawled over against the wall. 

Me. "How will I ever get it now?" 

" I'm going to be up all night." 

"I'm so nervous I'm about to wet my pants."

"I don't know why I'm freaking out so much?"

Her. (Being the good college girl that she is starting reading from her google search) " There is no known reported death from a Tarantula bite. Blah Blah Blah. The bite feels like a sharp sting of a wasp. Blah Blah Blah."....

Me. "stop, you are not helping me feel any better!"

And with that, it was on the move again. Right in to the corner under this table.

 I got out a flash light thinking if I beamed the light on it it would freeze and not move any more. Wrong, it made it dart out and crawl behind the heavy chest our t.v sits on. No way was I going to be able to move that out of the way to get it.

While she hung up to come up with a plan, I called the out-of-town Reptile Wrangler, because that's what anyone would do in a situation like this. Call a person that is hundreds of miles away, start screaming and crying when he answers the phone making him think someone was breaking into the house, and proceed to freak and ta RANT u la all over again!!!

He suggested I get a big long stick to whack it....

Then college girl called back, with a plan.

Her two guy friends from high school were coming to hep me out.
I did this back and forth thing for awhile..."no, they're going to think I' a crazy mom. No, I'm already in my pajamas, no tell them not to come. Ok...why aren't they here yet?"

While she was keeping me company while waiting for the 15 minutes she said it would take for them to get here , the spider of giantness came creeping out from behind the t.v chest. I kept the flash light beaming towards it figuring it would go away from the light which... would be going way from me. And then it went towards the hall . And I screamed "It's going to go in to your bedroom!!!"

It went in to the bathroom instead.

At this point, she very smartly said..."go unlock the door so they can just come in when they get there."

So I did. And then I grabbed the long stick the Wrangler told me to get thinking I could beat it away from me if I needed to. So here I am, with the long stick, flashlight, grabber thingy and my phone, watching this thing creep around in the bathroom. I'm in the family room by the way, zoom lens on the camera... remember?

By now it is midnight. on a friday night.
And the boys show up.
"Don't worry Mrs. M...we'll take care of this for you. "

So, I hand one of them my grabber thingy and the other one my long stick. I stayed way back with my camera.

They may or may not have jumped back when they first saw it..."Dude! It's huge".  And then, like a real swat team would do, the one with the grabber thingy said to the other..."you be ready with the stick while I run in there!"  A real Starsky and Hutch moment for me. This is about the time that I found some humor in the situation and started a bit of that nervous laughter that comes out during stressful moments.

 And then he got it. Pinched it right between its hairy legs. And then a bit of a scramble started...me getting out of the way...them saying "now what do we do with it? " And then me saying the only thing that came to mind...."drown it in the pool! "

And so that's what they did. They flung it out into the pool. Only problem...spiders CAN swim!!! Seriously? Does every awful creature know how to swim?

Me. " You can't leave it alive. It might crawl back in the house!"

And so, Starsky with the stick tried to hold it under. That didn't work. So he managed to get it close enough to the edge so Hutch could grab it with the thingy and hold it under the water.

And then, Starsky beat at it a few times with the stick before Hutch grabbed it again.All the while, I was diligently holding the light on it so they could see. I may or may not have beemed the light directly in their eyes a few time."Oops, sorry".

"I think it's dead"! they said. I told them to fling it over the fence. When he flung, I heard a noise in the plant behind me by the patio. "Did you let loose of the grabber thing at the wrong time?  In your back swing? Did it fling back here?" I screeched. Right about now is when they probably had some of those' she's a crazy Mom' thoughts. "No", he assured me. And then he demonstrated how he swung and released it over the fence.

 Now, I failed to  mention that when I followed them out the door and slid the sliding glass door shut, in all the excitement, I didn't think to check to see it the faulty latch was in the unlock position. As soon as I slid the door shut, click, I heard the door lock. "Oh no...I just locked us out of the house." They turned around and looked at me, one with the long stick the other with a tarantula pinched between the grabber thingy's pinchers with looks on their faces like "really Mrs M...are you serious right now?" And that is when I blurted out... "it's just a comedy of bad errors". Whatever that meant. Sheesh.

But, I soon remembered the smart college girl had instructed me to unlock the front door. Thankfully, it was still unlocked. So, after we got back in the house and I thanked them over and over again.. I said I owed them dinner or something. And then I said "wait...I have a couple of frozen pizzas in the freezer... do you want those? Are you hungry? You can take them with you. Here."

"Oh, and let me take your picture." (Because it is after midnight on a friday night and you just saved a poor frantic Mom from going absolutely crazy)

Here they are. My heroes!

Hopefully, the big hairy scary tarantula that caused me to loose my bravery and completely loose my sanity was over the fence. Hopefully, it was dead. Hopefully, it was not just stunned, hanging somewhere in the plant, ready to get me when I least expected it to. Because, I'm not sure that I can make it through another traumatic event such as that. I don't believe I slept at all that night.

The Reptile Wrangler got home the next night. He has been overwhelmed with my overwhelming happiness that he is home and my constant gushing that I missed him so. 

And then last night, while I was once again sitting in my chair, from behind me he reached around and held out this dark hairy thing wrapped taco style in a paper towel. "That spider was nothing compared to this big rat I just caught in the bathroom!"

Based on my scream, the words that followed and my full on body shudder...he will never again think  it is funny to show me the "hairball" he had just extracted from the shower drain saying it was a rat he just caught in the bathroom. 

He apologized, although laughing through the apology, over and over again. And after listening to me rant, he apologized some more.

Unbelievable but true.