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| Copyright 2012 - Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw |
I hate spiders! I’ve
mentioned that before, haven’t I? Maybe
once… or twice? Hate… hate… hate... hate! Tina says that I am being irrational and if I
leave them alone, they will leave me alone.
Pfffft! Now who’s being irrational? Besides, I see nothing irrational in a little
healthy fear of Satan’s spawn! And… the
Bible tells us we must be ever vigilant of the devil and his minions.
I rest my case.
~*~
To celebrate my 27th birthday (oh… it does look
smaller when I use numbers instead of spelling it out) Tina took extra time off
from work; the best birthday present she could have given me! For those of you who know me, there is really
only one place to celebrate my birthday… our beach house. If it is possible to love a place more than a
person, the Oregon
coast would be that place. It is the
closest thing to heaven on earth… after my sweet little honey, of course!
~*~
Sunday evening. We’ve
spent a wonderful extended weekend at the coast, beach-combing… dining out…
dining in… browsing bookstores… hours in front of the big fireplace with wine,
soft music and each other… “Best birthday
ever, honey! I love you so much!”
and are now settling in for our last evening before heading back to the hustle
and bustle of the big city.
I’m standing in front of the bathroom mirror, searching the sun-kissed
landscape of my face for signs of singeing from leaning a little too close to
the bonfire we had earlier in the evening with some new friends – when it
happens.
Right in front of my eyes… just as bold as you please… a big,
hairy spider drops from its perch over the mirror – they hide in the light
sconces, just waiting to give me a heart attack, the evil little bastards – and
skitters across the lavatory counter, millimeters from my right hand.
“F**k!” Panic-swept, my promise to Mama about sweary
words… that one in particular… is forgotten.
I turn and run from the bathroom.
Well… almost.
The closed bathroom door foils my less-than-graceful escape
from the eight-legged beast hissing behind me.
Okay… maybe it wasn’t the spider making that sound… it was me… trying to
form words… “Sssss… ssss…. sssh… shi…”
My spastic fingers finally find purchase on the polished
brass doorknob and I wrench the bathroom door open, literally flying across the
vanilla-scented space between the doorway and where Tina is sitting up in bed –
a good twenty feet - with a look of consternation on her face. I swear… my feet never touched the
floor!
“Wha…?” I don’t hear what else she says, as I dive under
the covers, where a string of expletives fills the warm space.
“OMG! F**k…” Sorry, Mama… (insert several more sweary
words here).
Gradually, the trip-hammer in my chest slows and the
velocity of blood roaring through my ears lessens. The warmth and scent of Tina calms me, as it
always does, and after a few minutes I push back the covers and sit up. She gets an ‘A’ for effort, but my honey is doing a very poor job of not
smiling at my distress.
“Spider?”
“Giant, hunormous (It’s
a word! Work with me, people… I’ve just
suffered a trauma!) spider… like… this
big!”
I hold up my hands, fingers splayed, approximating the
circumference of a turkey platter.
“How big?” With
a slight tilt of her head, Tina offers up a prosecutorial query…
Moving my hands closer together… a large cantaloupe.
“Really?” Tina’s one word follow-up is accompanied with
a look and air of skepticism that is worthy of an Academy Award for Best
Actress. And she calls ME a drama queen?
“Objection, your
honor! Badgering the witness!” I retort.
Her soft hazel eyes… with those little flecks of gold… stare
back at me, unblinking.
Moving my hands closer still… an orange would fill the space…
still closer - now using the fingers of one hand to illustrate the size of said
hairy-legged beast from whom, thanks to my Crystal Cathedral-shattering shriek,
we have been spared an agonizing death – approximating the size of an apricot…
still closer… cherry tomato… craisan… still closer… a grain of bulgur…
It’s amazing how one’s perspective changes, once the panic
subsides and adrenaline levels return to normal.
My inamorata sits there silently… a rather satisfied smirk
on her coral pink lips.
Sighing…
“Smirking doesn’t
become you… you do know that?”
“And you wonder why I
said ‘no’ to you getting a shotgun to keep by the bed?”
Okay… okay… okay… so maybe Tina has a point there. Otherwise, right now we would be staring into
the bathroom… through a jagged two foot hole in the bedroom wall, a cloud of
gunsmoke drifting across the room and the boom of a double-barrel 12-gauge
reverberating our eardrums.
I make a last attempt to save a shred of my dignity…
“I read somewhere that
it is the little teeny, tiny spiders that carry the deadliest venom.”
I can almost hear Tina’s eyeballs click as they roll back in
their sockets.
“Can we please go to
sleep now?” she asks.
Sigh…
Yes, now that you mention it… it does feel a little ‘déjà vu-ey’.
Damn spiders!
~*~
The next morning… in the bathroom...
“You have a mole on
your butt.”
“You promised not to
throw that in my face… it’s in our wedding vows.”
“No, this is a new
one… bigger… the size of Wisconsin.”
I switch off the hair dryer… we stare at each other in the
mirror… the silence grows.
“Wisconsin?”
Tina steps back and bends down to look at my bum again.
“Maybe Michigan… no, wait… Michigan
is the one that looks like a mitten, right?
Yeah… this is definitely Wisconsin.”
She straightens up and looks back at me in the mirror.
“The SIZE of Wisconsin?” My voice raises a couple of octaves.
“Oh!” Tina’s hazel eyes go wide.
“No! Shape… I meant shape… not…”
Her voice trails off as Tina realizes the implications of
her little ‘faux pas’. She withers a little under my stare. Clearly, judging by the flicker of fear in
her eyes, I have mastered my ‘murderous
look’. Tina knows well the penalty
for making allusions as to the size of my bum… it is a very sensitive subject
with me. I’m trying!
“I’m sorry, baby girl…
shape… I meant shape… really…” Feeble
words spill over her lips. What’s that
old line… how do you tell when a lawyer is lying? Their lips are moving.
A little something to know about my wife… Tina always says
what she means… always! I’ve been
reminded of that often enough, bless her dark little lawyer’s soul. No… this little aside is her subtle way of
telling me the caboose of this train is getting a bit full.
Tina’s voice falters and she reaches for me, but I pull
away. I might as well ‘milk’ this thing, right?
My mouth tightens to a flat line and I narrow my eyes – once a drama queen… always a drama queen. Tina looks away, at spot in the mirror’s
distance. You can almost hear a pin drop
in the room.
“So then… that would
make my ass, what? The size of Texas… and Alaska?” I turn my back on her, to emphasize my
last words.
My voice has that deceptive calm the prosecutor sometimes invokes
just before he or she hammers home the final nail in the coffin, and sends some
poor bastard away for thirty years. It
is a quality of voice that Tina knows all too well, having employed it more
than once in the courtroom herself.
This time the silence draws out like a blade… sharp and
silvery. You can almost hear the neurons
firing beneath her soft, blonde hair.
“Wait a minute… that’s
not a mole… I think you sat on something.”
After a moment…
“Well… what is
it?”
“Ummm…” Tina
hesitates. “Well, umm…hmm… it might…be… a
spi….”
As she speaks, her hand brushes across my naked bum. I turn and look down at mortis araneus, motionless on the cool tiles… and run shrieking from
the bathroom.
*
I really do have to stop these graceless exits… its bad
form.
*
With the sound of the flushing toilet fading away, I walk
back from the kitchen to the bathroom.
I’m pretty sure the last bit of my self-respect is lying on the tiles,
waiting for me to pick it up.
“A spider?”
Tina nods.
“The size of Wisconsin?”
?
She blinks… and then blinks again.
Oh, I am so getting that shotgun!
~ finis ~
© 2013 – Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw. All Rights Reserved.
Photograph - © 2012 – Veronica Marie Lewis-Shaw. All Rights Reserved.
