Monday 9 July 2007

Arachnid Attack

Driving Dan back to his mums house yesterday when out of the corner of my eye I noticed something sinister-looking dangling from my car window at face-level. The hairs on the back of my neck sprang up instantly as I recognised the danger - Spider Attack! As the window was fully-opened I tried to brush it out, but at 30mph it flew right back in at me, all big and hairy, legs flailing madly, no doubt pumping venom right to the tips of its fangs as it prepared to take me out. I immediately counter-attacked using a technique employed by arachnophobes the world over - going "Aaargh!" whilst frantically trying to brush it away without actually making contact with the beast. Needless to say I still kept one hand on the steering wheel and one eye on the road. This resulted in the spider disappearing somewhere inside my car, to no doubt re-group before his second assault. So I pulled over to iniate some serious seek-and-destroy. Daniel doesn't like spiders either and I swear he was out of the car and onto the pavement before I'd got the handbrake on.

Did I mention I don't like spiders? I'm not scared of em, just don't like them. Honest.


Anyway, a quick search failed to locate said spider, so we resumed our journey lest I got D home late which would have resulted in me getting some ear-ache off his mum. We got there on time and without the creeping terror putting in another appearance, which saved me from having to explain my tardiness. Dan recounted the tale to his mum and sister, leaving nothing out, including (unfortunately for me) the bit where he volunteered " And Dad said the f-word." Oh dear, she was not impressed. Kids eh? Dontcha love em?

The trouble is that every time I get in my car now I have to give it the once-over to see if I can catch it. Oh, sorry, I mean kill it. Savagely. I know he's in there somewhere, just waiting for the opportunity to strike. It's no coincidence that my rear-view mirror fell off during the return journey. He's probably up to no good right now, sawing through my brake pipes or something. I can feel his dark malevolence. It's him or me. And I ain't going down without a fight.

And I know that someone, somewhere, will be saying things like "But it's only a spider, it's more scared of you than you are of it." No it ain't, believe me. Or another favourite is "Spiders are good, they catch flies." What? Not under my bed they don't. Or behind my toilet. I'm okay with spiders as long as they stay where they're supposed to be - outdoors. But when they invade my domain, their asses are mine.

So I didn't get much done yesterday apart from soldering some armatures and posing them ready for some putty, which took ages cos of the soldering part, proving yet again my total ineptness at anything remotely practical. But I got there in the end and only burnt myself once.

My daughter Bethan is 15 today, Happy Birthday sweetheart! I'm off to her party soon, and I frankly can't be bothered writing any more today, so that's it from me.

Take it easy

Chris

2 comments:

Bill T said...

I'm surrounded by wusses. You, Hazel, Mike!
Out of the three of you Mike is the worse. I didn't know men could scream at such a high pitch.

MikeH said...

Chris

Dont worry about what Bill says, if it was me I'd have set fire to the car to make sure it was gone.

maybe you should buy a cat or 2 they are great at catching spiders

Mike