So much for women's lib

Dear Ancho,

I want you to know that I am o.k. Here's what happened--- we were closing up our conversation--- by the way you are supposed to call me at 8 a.m. Sunday. We were talking about something, which now has been permanently swept from my brain. For some reason, I glanced down at the floor to look at my feet. There, right beside my left foot was a large, I mean very large, spider. A tarantula. My first reponse was disbelief. Perhaps one of the kids had played a prank? Then it was realization--- oh my god, there is a tarantula by my foot! Then there was reaction- which is when you heard me yelling something like "Oh my god there's a tarantula by my foot! It is so big! Oh my god I have to get someone to help me! I can't kill it! Honey, I have to go now."

After I hung up I walked out the door and called out to the folks who were hanging out at the pulperia. "Can somebody come help me there is a big spider in my house and I can't kill it!" Two twenty-something guys came down to help me. When they got to my front door, they politely said, "con permiso" asking permission to come in, when I clearly was in need of immediate assistance. I appreciated the courtesy but was not in the mood for politeness. I wanted destruction. My biggest fear for the ten seconds that elapsed between discovery of the tarantula and the death of the tarantula was that it would crawl quickly away to some little nook or cranny to await my bed time, when it would creep ever-so-delicately under my sheets and strike!

I could not bear the thought of a sleepless night on tarantula patrol.

The guys, who undoubtedly think I am a nut (although it could be argued that most people here questions my sanity), walked into my office and surveyed the spider. One tried to actually pick it up by one of its legs. The other man, clearly aware that I wanted to see the spider die, not just get placed outside of my house where it could come back in, simply killed the tarantula--- I am not making this up- with his bare hands. He just knocked the crap out of it with his fist. There are blood and guts and unidentified liquids on my white ceramic tile floor to prove it, but I'll save you the details.

Anyway, I am o.k. But I feel like such a pansy. I have read that tarantulas aren't all that dangerous, but I am not really wanting personal experience with a tarantula bite. I mean I am all about participant-observation, but that is taking it a little too far. Now, I am writing this up to share with the blog world and drinking a screwdriver.

Slowly relaxing after the adrenaline tsunami, I write this to you with much love,

Lefty