This Post Has Nothing to Do With Writing.

My mailbox is a breeding ground for spiders.

A month or maybe two months ago, I opened my mailbox, even though I knew it was probably empty, only to find that it wasn't empty at all. It was FULL. OF A GIANT SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!

(OK, in reality the spider wasn't actually giant. Its body was maybe the size of my thumbnail. But that's GIANT to me.)

I cried. I pouted. I screamed. The spider stayed where it was. I slammed the mailbox shut and vowed never to get the mail again, even though getting mail* is probably my favorite part of the entire day.** When hubs came home, I told him what had happened and he agreed to spray the mailbox. When he came back, I asked if he had seen the spider.

"No. It was hiding."
"THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT YOU KILLED IT???!!!"
"Heather, I put half a can of bug spray inside that mailbox. If anything manages to live inside of it, especially what I'm sure is the world's smallest spider***, I will be incredibly impressed."

So I took his word for it. I waited what I thought was an appropriate amount of time for that little jerk to suffocate on the bug fumes, and about two weeks later I started collecting the mail again.

All was well.

Until today.

I'll admit it's my own fault.

A few days ago I noticed that a thread-like white substance had appeared inside my mailbox. I ignored it. It was in the back, and I pretended it was innocent. Perhaps bits of clouds had floated inside. Or dental floss. Maybe all those socks that had gone missing over the years had unraveled and made their way to my mailbox. Regardless, I pretended like it wasn't a problem, as the amount of puffy white material grew more and more abundant as the days went on.

Then today I went home for lunch. I knew I had season 2 of True Blood waiting for me via Netflix, so I was excited to settle down with a salad and a DVD. I opened up my mailbox and pulled out a small stack of red envelopes, followed by a mass of mailers promoting crap I don't need. The mailers flew out of my hand when a passing UPS truck drove by, and the papers fluttered to the ground. Not being one to litter, I bent down to pick them up.

They were in my hand when I saw a BIG BROWN THING within their depths. OH NOES!!! A SPIDER!!!!!! THAT WHITE STUFF WAS A WEB!!! I WAS SO NAIVE!!! AND NOW THE SPIDER IS IN MY HAND!!!

But it wasn't a spider at all. It was just a clump of dirt or something, stuck to the mailers. *phew* Crisis averted.

I recycled the mailers and flipped through the DVDs, curious to see what SUPER lame movie the hubs had chosen this time****, and THEN!!! WHAT DO YOU THINK HAPPENED, READERS??? (I'm sorry to yell but this was very upsetting.)

A SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FOR REAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IN MY HAND!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CRISIS NOT ACTUALLY AVERTED AT ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CUE FREAK-OUT!!!!!!

A screech (heard 'round the neighborhood) and several vigorous shakes of the DVDs and the little guy was scurrying away on the hot cement, as I contemplated squishing his body with toe of high heels. But...I really like these shoes. And once he was on the ground and not IN MY EFFING HAND YOU CREEPSTER he didn't look all that bad. And he was nowhere near my mailbox (things are a lot farther away when you're only two centimeters wide.)

When hubs came home, I told him he needed to either spray the mailbox every week or ask Terminex to add "mailbox spraying" to our invoice, because I like getting the mail too much to skip it.

So that's my spider story. Hope you enjoyed it, and obviously I did it without including a single picture of a spider, because I am not an evil person (unlike some people who maybe talk about were-spiders on Twitter and scare their followers *coughShannonMessengercough*)

If you enjoyed this story, you will like Allie Brosh's spider story about 6,000 times more, because she is way, way funnier than me, plus hers has drawings.

*Email included, but that's inside my MacBook or my Blackberry, not outside where there are spiders.
**Unless it's bills or junk mail, which I pretty much think is the same thing.
***He hadn't actually seen the spider, he just knows me very well.
****Recent choices include Midgets vs. Mascots, Steam boy, and pretty much any lame cartoon movie of a Marvel comic-book. Also the Hercules TV show. Yeah. Really.