Both Sides Now

This time last year while I sat in my windowless cube and performed menial editing-related tasks for my Very Corporate Employer, I often contemplated Weathergirl's cushy college schedule with envy, thinking to myself "Man, I sure wish I had a fall break for no good reason. Those holidays are awesome. *sigh*"

This morning, I am finding myself resentful of said holidays, college-created or otherwise. Like Labor Day. Who needs Labor Day? Certainly not my freshman honors students. They should have to come to class and actually labor on Labor Day. Why? Because of my nice neat syllabus schedule, that's why. Because I forgot about Labor Day when I was putting it all together and now, thanks to some silly national holiday (for which half of the work force doesn't actually get to take off anyway—how many Bath and Body Works clerks have you seen taking it easy on Labor Day?), I'm having to cut readings and do some major Tetris with my assignment dates to fit in the 6 papers that the state of Alabama requires me to assign.

And don't even get me started with Thanksgiving. As Expat says, "Forget Thanksgiving. The students should just go eat a turkey sandwich in the caf."

Hello, shoe. Meet the other foot.

On the other hand, this is definitely the most pressing concern of my morning. My laundry is done, my kitchen is clean, and I have had 8 hours of sleep. Plus, I'm not even teaching yet, so I can stop playing Tetris with my syllabus whenever I want and go, I don't know, shop with all that money I don't have or read a book or actually set foot in the apartment complex gym and see what it's all about.

Oh woe, woe the impossibly hard life of a college instructor, doomed to sit in coffee houses and curse public holidays while sipping a skinny vanilla latte. The horror, the horror.

Scooter Nation Relocation: The Spider that Snapped the Freeze

If I had forgotten exactly how big the bugs in Alabama are, the Massive Spider in our guest bathroom certainly served as a clear reminder.

I had been living for months—years, actually—in the relatively bug-less north, unconcerned with anything larger than a cricket. Granted, this was the year of the eleven-year cicada in Chicago, but we only really encountered those from then enclosed safety of the Subaru, so I don't really feel that they count. No, on the whole, I had gotten off easy. And in getting off easy, I'd gotten soft. No longer could I simply sense the coming of segmented bodies on skittery, jointed legs. No longer could I reflexively whip off my right shoe and aim a sure death blow even in the dark. No longer could I stand cooly with a drink in my hand while the interloper in question scurried along the living room wall and say with blasé calm, “Oh, leave him alone. He's just a little garden orb spider.”

I was not blasé when I encountered the Massive Spider. In fact, I believe my exact reaction was “Oh, shit it's fucking huge.”

And it was.

It skittered from possibly inside, possibly beside the guest bathroom to roughly halfway under the Brand New Toilet Plunger that we had just bought for our Brand New Apartment. I think it was trying to hide, but half of it's spider body and most of its spider legs were still sticking out, sort of like when a dog sticks his head under a chair and thinks he's hidden while the rest of him is still clearly hanging out in the living room. With the Massive Spider, it just looked like it was trying to walk off with the plunger.

The plunger, for the record, was sitting right next to the toilet. And I, for the record, was just sitting down on said toilet to pee when I heard the definitive rustle of the Massive Spider.

Expat and I had just come from a great Mexican meal with the head of Big Alabama U's composition program. We all started off with a Happy Hora margarita each; she treated us to whatever we wanted, then plied us with flan and a second margarita and by the time we were done, Expat and I were staggeringly grateful that La Gran Fiesta was only un pequeño way from home. We walked in our own front door too loud for the Pre-Kids to be very happy with us and proceeded to laugh at them and at the boxes in the living room and at the fact that it was Friday and we had almost been in Alabama for one whole week.

By the time I thought to pee, I Really Had To Go. I scattered the cats on my sudden sprint to the guest bathroom, whirled to shut the door and undo my pants in one fluid movement, and sat down on the toilet with a decided thunk. Then and only then did I hear Massive Spider in its frantic scurry for cover. I jumped up before expelling a single drop, hoisted my pants and opened the door in one fluid movement, and raced to the kitchen to grab our Brand New Can of Raid.

I once spent three months in a platform tent in the woods of Tennessee defending hapless (and harmless) daddy longlegs from hordes of shrieking junior Girl Scouts. I spent countless weeks trying to explain to 10-year-olds that the little spiders weaving webs over the girls' beds were actually more interested in eating mosquitoes than in biting sleeping Girl Scouts and that really, we were invading their homes, not the other way around. It didn't matter. Countless worthy arachnids died on my watch, many by my own shoe in a wild effort to stop the shrieking of said Girl Scouts.

The spider in my bathroom now was nothing new. Had I been sober, perhaps, and had the spider been in context (read: outside, next to the campfire pit) instead of my guest bathroom, I might have recognized it for what it was: a wolf spider, or more specifically, Rabidosa rabida—the Rabid Wolf Spider. Oh, it's a fearsome name alright, but the Rabid Wolf Spider is harmless to humans. They rarely bite and they never go on the offensive. If for some reason one should bite you, it's about like getting stung by a bee: not pleasant but hardly deadly. Wolf spiders don't like being inside; they like dry leaves and grasses and if you see them inside, they're there by mistake. The best thing to do for a lost wolf spider is to herd it into a Tupperware container and set it free in the backyard. The problem is, they're big—an inch-long wolf spider isn't uncommon, and that's not counting the legs—and they're hairy. Big hairy things that should be outside aren't usually well received when seen inside, particularly when they crawl out from unexpected places and surprise someone, particularly when they are surprising someone who is out of the practice of dealing with large bugs, someone who is somewhat tipsy from margaritas and who Really Has To Go.

Instead, after my initial outburst, I quietly and efficiently squirted the hell out of the Massive Spider hiding under my toilet plunger with an unnecessarily large, plum-colored aerosol can of unscented Raid, (roach and ant formula). It ran after the first squirt, darting around the toilet and up, into the light brown wicker waste basket I've had ever since I can remember.

And it wasn't until the next day, after Expat had come and flushed the Massive Spider down the toilet, after I had relieved my need to Really Go (in the other bathroom), after the only trace of the margaritas was that vague, hazy headache behind my eyes, that I stopped to think about the Massive Spider.

In case you haven't figured it out, I feel bad for killing it.

The Massive Spider wasn't doing anything more than jumping out from behind my shower curtain and saying the equivalent of a spider “boo.” I probably scared him more with my wild running/unzipping/door slamming than he did me. I mean, I wasn't the one trying to hide under the toilet plunger.

But this wasn't just a harmless encounter. This was my initiation back into Alabama culture. This was my right to claim, my legacy by virtue of living several states south of the Mason-Dixon line, where every household comes equipped with the KJV and a monthly Terminex plan.

And like any good Southerner coming home after years in exile, I reached out, grasped this legacy with both hands, and aimed, unflinching, at the skittery, jointed-leg interloper in my bathroom.