The Spider

"I think I just saw a mouse run across the floor" says Jim, alarmingly calmly, as he peered into the television lit gloom of our front room.

"Are you sure it wasn't a spider?" I ask

"I'm telling myself spiders can't move that fast" Jim says somewhat less calmly.

Eager to find out if it's a mouse (i.e. cute) or a spider (i.e. terrifying) I switch the front room light on.

"Oh God. It's a spider" Jim says "There by that wire" he points to one of the million wires that criss cross our floor next to one of the several piles of DVDs.

I look, my poor eyesight (or maybe it was just my fear) not allowing me to see. I get closer... Jesus Christ it was big!

I'm sure every house has a designated spider catcher/killer; the person who is least scared of spiders. Sadly, for some unknown reason, I've ended up with that job. Darn it!

I went to the kitchen and got a glass and a piece of paper. Jim told me he wouldn't think less of me if I did just kill it. I just can't bring myself to kill spiders. Partly it's just plain old "It's wrong to kill" and partly it's a fear that the spider might survive and either come back to get me or live long enough to tell other spiders of my deed and they attack en masse (paranoid much?). So I got the thing in the glass with the piece of paper beneath it.

It promptly began to attack the glass. Thinking about lifting the paper and glass up scared me a little too much so we got a comic and put that underneath the paper for added support. I still felt a tad afraid so grabbed a DVD and added that. Finally lifting the glass up, Jim opened the window and grabbed the net curtains aside as I flung the spider out into the garden.

Spiders should be unseen, unheard and very much unfelt.

As an aside why on Earth do my customers feel compelled to right LOL in their emails to me? Any one got any examples of anything more juvenile or over familiar?