Bit of Ivory

I took a shower with a spider yesterday morning.
It’s not all that unusal for me to find spiders in the tub in the
morning. I live in the basement, and there are always spiders there.
Kind of like Harry–“Harry was used to spiders. There were a lot of
them in the cupboard under the stairs, and that’s where Harry slept.”
Or something like that. When we were little and didn’t use the
downstars bathroom all that much (it only had a tub at the time; we
didn’t install the shower until I was in 7th grade) and spiders showed
up in the tub, we used to drown them in shampoo. Breck worked quite
well for this. It was oddly satisfying. Anyway, I used to be afraid of
spiders, but I’m not anymore. I still don’t like them all that
much, but if they leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone. There are only
two times spiders actually scare me. 1) When they’re on my bed or 2)
When they jump out suddenly. Or maybe when they’re really, really big.
Once I had a combination of the second and the Big factor. I was
cleaning my room when I picked up a stuffed bunny named Susannah, who I
had made in 9th grade. She has this big dress, and I usually put her on
my bed when I actually make it (which is about once every 3 months, if
that). When I picked her up, a gigantic spider fell out. I swear, it
was 3 inches in diameter. You can bet that I dropped that bunny and ran
like heck. My dad finally found the spider under my bed, and he agreed
that it was probably one of the biggest he’d ever seen. But since
spiders don’t get on my bed all that often (it seems to be Sacred
Space, spider-wise) and don’t really jump out at me all that much, I
get along quite well with spiders. Except when they show up in the
bathtub. Then I wash them down the drain. I had two to wash down today,
as a matter of fact. But yesterday was different.
I had checked to tub. No spiders. So I turned on the water and got in
the shower. Now, I have really, really bad vision, so when I’m in the
shower, everything is a blur. It wasn’t until I got out of the shower
and put my glasses back on that I noticed the little spider that had
magically appeared in the bottom of the tub. It was very dead–
drowned, most likely. But just knowing that there was a spider at my
feet while I was showering made me shudder. The idea of stepping on the
little thing with my bare feet was not satisfying.
I checked the shower more carefully this time.
And I can state that I’m not looking forward to the Aragog scene in
Chamber of Secrets. A three-inch spider is bad enough–how am I going
to react to a 6-foot one? Even if I know it’s fake and it’s on a screen
where it can’t hurt me? *shudder* Poor Ron.