All I’m saying is that it was a Friday morning like any other Friday morning.  You know the ones…Your body seems to think it’s Saturday, it doesn’t want to wake up, you stumble out to your car to drive to your last work day of the week at the day job.

In retrospect, I think I’m thankful for that “Right Lane Closed Ahead” sign that was kind of deceiving.  I went all the way to the left, thinking my ramp lane was going to be closed, but apparently they highway department decided to close the right lane AFTER my ramp, so I hung a left at the light by Bo Jangles, because it was green, and figured I’d just take the back way to work.  Probably a good thing I WASN’T on the highway, in retrospect.

So there’s this hard left curve in the road before I get to the DMV, right?  The sunlight comes streaming in the passenger door window. It’s bright, but pretty. That’s when I see it.  Yes, IT…The SPIDER. In my car.  I am talking IN my car.

Let me back up a bit.  For those of you who do not know me personally, you know the things I am most scared of are house fires, spiders, and dying a slow painful death from cancer, and not necessarily in that order.  Now you know.

At first I caught it as a blob out of the corner of my eye, just as I am about to take that hard left curve in the road, and realize that it isn’t one of those itsy bitsy things simply dangling from it’s little silken thread. Oh, nooooo….Not my co-pilot.  The little bastard riding shotgun was about the size of a dime, and one of those icky brown garden variety spiders. AND he had taken up residence in my car.  Strung a whole arachnid condominium from the right side of my rear view mirror over to the arm rest of the passenger side door. *sigh*

I actually handled things a lot better than I thought I would in that a) I did not wreck the car; b) I did not pee my pants; and c) I did not cry.  I DID, however, gingerly lean over and grab my handbag, whilst navigating that stupid turn in the road and beat the living hell out of that poor spider with it, hyperventilating and cussing it the whole time.

C’mon, Spiderman, I’m ready for you, now!

I’m really glad there was nobody behind me and that my rear window is small enough that if there HAD been someone back there they would not have seen the spastic spider killing dance that I was doing from the driver’s seat of my car.

Did I kill it? I don’t really know.  I didn’t ever find a carcass.  The offending creature is either dead (which I hated to do, but in a moving vehicle, it’s either going to be him or me, and I knew he wasn’t going to finish my report), or still cowering in utter shock under the passenger seat somewhere.

Tricia is riding up to Raleigh with me tomorrow afternoon.  I imagine if he’s still in there and alive, SHE will let me know….

Right, Tricia?

Tricia?  Hey…Trish?