Girl vs Spider

More evidence that this week is shit - last night I got home and was preparing for bed. I leaned over my dressing table to close the curtains when I was greeted by a terrible sight. There was a MASSIVE spider lurking in the bottom of a vase on the table. Reader, I'm not ashamed to say that I let out an eldritch screech at the sight of it. How had it got there? I'd been congratulating myself only recently on having avoided the perils of 'spider season' (traditionally around September) when armies of arachnids seem to march the land, hell bent on terror. I was thinking that my flat was clearly hermetically sealed, and as it's on a massive road with no trees or bushes for them to hide in, no eight-legged freaks were going to attack me. I was wrong.

'There is the most massive spider I have ever seen in my bedroom. I fucking hate spiders', I texted the MMMC, keen to have some support from a man (this is the problem, when you're a single girl, you have to deal with your own spiders, instead of retreating to the farthest corner until A Man Has Dealt With It). 'That's a sign of good luck' he texted back, unhelpfully. 'No it's not, I replied, 'it's another sign that God hates me'. 'Ha ha, night night' he said. Bastard. Why had he not offered to drive all the way across town at 11.30 at night to rescue me? Oh, that's right, because we're not going out, we're just friends.

Hmm, so, action was going to have to be taken. There's no way you can sleep in the same room as a spider once you know it's there. It has to be killed (the only good spider is a dead one, in my view). I dashed to the kitchen and grabbed a plate and rubber gloves. I was taking no chances - if it was going to suddenly leap from the vase, it wasn't going to get to touch my arms. No way. I slapped the plate over the top of the vase (visions of the ends of its legs clawing out from underneath it all the while). I picked up the vase (still with the gloves on and clamping the plate to the top of it). I dashed into the kitchen once more. I know the traditional place to rid oneself of spiders is down the plughole in the bathroom, but mine has a nasty habit of getting a bit... furred up. Shall we leave it at that? Yes, let's. So, the kitchen it was. I placed the vase in the sink, I turned on the tap. I removed the plate and aimed the stream of water at the vase. The spider gave every impression of having drowned. I put the plate back on top just to be on the safe side - I have a history of spiders staging Lazarus-like recoveries even when having been hit very hard with a copy of Marie Claire.

I went to bed happy in the knowledge that I had been Very Brave. And also knowing that, much as I derided Gillian McKeith, if I ever had to go on I'm a Celebrity Get Me out of Here, I would last 28 seconds. The first five seconds would involve me spotting a koala, and going, 'Ahh, look, a koala!' (do koalas live in the jungle? Doesn't matter - pick something cute). The next 23 seconds would involve me shrieking, 'AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH' as I spotted something without fur and with too many limbs, and demanding to be taken back to the hotel instantly. I am a total girl when it comes to dealing with anything that has more than four legs, and that's fine by me.