At the Bates Motel, I Expect an Early Check-in and No Messy Shower Scenes

The cable guy came to my house yesterday, requiring access to spaces that haven’t been touched by a human hand, not to mention a Swifter duster, since 1978.

All that activity disrupted the local spider population, which sent a spokesman to complain and demand compensation.  Their eight-legged emissary was waiting for me in the shower this morning.

Some of you know I do not like spiders.

But I didn’t overreact because I’m trying to be more peaceful and loving towards all God’s creatures. I thought of starting up my chain saw, but I didn’t.  I sat on the side of the tub, took a deep breath, counted to 10, and looked in the shower again.

It was still there. I sat back down.

I wondered whether I really needed a shower this morning.  Maybe not, but eventually I would, and I’d be wondering where it had got off to, and, more importantly, where it might turn up while my eyes were closed and my hair full of shampoo.

Perhaps I could share the shower. That plan was quickly deposited in the crazy things Chicken would never do file.

Finally, it was decided, by all my traumatized selves and I, that the spider needed to be taken alive and relocated to a place that wasn’t my fucking house. I looked around for a clear container, considered filling it with whiskey, decided against it, and headed back to the bathroom, where I trapped the little bastard, humanely, shook it to the bottom of the glass, slapped a cover on top, and left it to ponder its fate while I scrubbed the creepy crawlies off my skin with $15 bar of Whole Foods soap sourced from Peruvian monks who probably have other people to save them from vicious shower spiders thanks to me and my spontaneous spending habits but that’s a whole other story.

Anyways. Eventually, dressed, clean and somewhat more composed, I transported the spider outside where I kicked off the cover with one foot, gave the glass a nudge and jumped back into my house. Bon Voyage, Spider, and don’t come back.

I feel good about myself for not killing that spider and flushing it down the toilet 53 times just to be safe. I did the right thing and I know it will come back to me someday; like, if I ever check into a room at the Bates Motel, for instance, or a hostel somewhere, or am forced to use the public restroom at a campground, I expect not to be stabbed to death, chain-sawed, or strangled and left as a fearsome reminder of what happens to pesky, unwanted visitors.

Chicken out