Saturday 18 October 2014

The Beast in the Bathroom.

Picture the scene.   It is four-thirty in the very early morning and the farmer's wife has got out of bed to go to the bathroom.   The farmer is fast asleep and she doesn't want to wake him, so she creeps out on to the landing and into the bathroom, shuts the door and pulls on the light, crosses to the far side of the bathroom and sits on the loo.

From the far corner of the bathroom the beast emerges from behind the pedestal of the wash hand basin.  First one leg, then another, until all eight legs become visible and a VERY LARGE  body in between.  Upon catching sight of me it stops, rises up on its long legs and looks at me (well I presume it does but I am not at all sure where a spider's eyes are located).  

Not wishing to wake the farmer because he might not get back to sleep again (and also not wishing him to think me an absolute wuss - he is more than half way there already), I sit transfixed and think.
This seems to be exactly what the spider is doing (do spider's have brains?) and for a while we share this game of statues.   Then, suddenly, without warning, it sets off at breakneck speed across the bathroom floor in my direction, seemingly aiming for my feet.   I raise them from the ground (as far as I can) and we repeat the whole charade.

Finally I waft my feet about and it sits very still.   I leap off the toilet, shoot out of the bathroom, pull out the light switch and reach the bed in double-quick time (didn't know I could move this fast these days) and then make sure the duvet does not touch the bedroom carpet.  (Can spiders jump?)

Later in the morning I go into the Library and find they are putting up their Hallowe'en decorations.  As I push open the door the young Librarian is just holding a very large black card spider ready to hang from the ceiling.   There has to be a third spider-sighting.   Will it be tonight in the middle of the night?   Has the spider taken up Winter residence in the bathroom?   Can I ever escape from the beast in the bathroom?   Watch this blog.

All this reminds me of long ago, in my prev ious life, when I lived in middle England and my first husband worked as a Civil Servant teaching young men in a maximum security prison for young offenders.   You can imagine - he knew young men very well and stood no nonsense (he was always very popular with his 'students' I have to say).

One year we had been away on holiday and when we returned a lady who lived in one of the houses that faced on to the bottom of our back garden came in to see us.   She was a Special Constable and said that she didn't want to alarm us but while we were away she had seen a young man from higher up the road come down to our back garden very late one night - in the dark - and tip something over the fence into our shrubbery. She told us that she suspected drugs.

Taking the bull by the horns my husband went immediately to the house and confronted the young man, whose parents were away.  He looked very shame-faced on hearing the accusation and immediately confessed.   He was scared of spiders and he had 'rescued' one from the carpet in their sitting room using the glass and card method and thought if he put it in our garden then it was too far away from his house to return.

My husband's reply (which I have never forgotten) was, "Any time you want to put a spider in our garden, you just help yourself mate!"

 
 

24 comments:

Heather said...

Wonderful spider stories and I am so glad I'm not the only 'wuss'! I never put the light on so I can't see if there is one watching me during my nocturnal trips to the loo. There was one at Hawkwood where I went for the workshop weekend. I had to put the light on there as I wasn't familiar with the place and as I sat down I noticed this very large spider in the corner behind the door. I actually spoke to it and said 'Now you just stay there' and to my great relief it did!

Rachel Phillips said...

Dear Weaver, I am terrified of spiders and cannot even look at pictures of them. In this old house I get lots and I generally have to deal with them on my own and I have my ways of doing it. Some this year have been the biggest I have EVER seen.

John "By Stargoose And Hanglands" said...

Probably the animal kingdom has heard that farmers' wives go around cutting the tails off of blind mice and has sent their biggest spider to hunt you down. Watch out!

Frugal in Derbyshire said...

Spiders are the only thing I can't stand. I don't mind snakes or beetles or frogs, it's just the eight legged monsters. I believe they are not indigenous to this planet and my fear is perfectly reasonable.
Did you know that we all eat a few spiders occasionally when they crawl into our mouths when we are alseep? I read that somewhere. I do hope it is not true!

Linda Metcalf said...

I can relate....only with me it was a snake...picture this girl running out the back door of the hours screaming for hubby with her pants only pulled to her knees!

Linda Metcalf said...

I can relate....only with me it was a snake...picture this girl running out the back door of the hours screaming for hubby with her pants only pulled to her knees!

Linda Metcalf said...

woops....can you delete the last 2 :)

Terra said...

Spiders spiders everywhere. A great post for October, and I like your husband's comment to the young man. We used to have a daddy long legs spider that lived above our toilet and we put up a sign "don't disturb our spider".

Elizabeth said...

How about closing the door of the loo and seeing a scorpion hiding in the corner behind the door?! Yikes.
Leapt on to toilet seat
yelled for husband to open door and jumped right out of loo leaving scorpion behind. (Can they jump?)
Think I eventually went outside instead....

Elizabeth said...

How about closing the door of the loo and seeing a scorpion hiding in the corner behind the door?! Yikes.
Leapt on to toilet seat
yelled for husband to open door and jumped right out of loo leaving scorpion behind. (Can they jump?)
Think I eventually went outside instead....

Barbara said...

I'm sorry to laugh at your expense, Pat, but the mental picture of the staring contest between you and the spider was hilarious.
Hoping you get your third spotting out of the way before nightfall!

angryparsnip said...

I have been up most of the night with one of my episodes and a massive headache but as I read this post today i giggled. You are such a wonderful writer and as I was somewhat blurry reading your stories I felt so much better.

cheers, parsnip

Joanne Noragon said...

Spiders may not live in my bathroom. They may enter, but they do not live.

Cloudia said...

Sounds a lovely fellow; Now to your dilemma. . . . . LOL!




ALOHA from Honolulu
ComfortSpiral
=^..^= . <3

Cro Magnon said...

My wide 'dealt with' a big spider last night in the bedroom. The fuss she made was unbelievable; shrieking, and screaming as if her life was a stake. I pretended to be asleep.

Cro Magnon said...

For 'wide' please read 'wife'.

thelma said...

They are intelligent by the way, saw a story about a spider that had tethered a stone from a long web to balance it's web between the apex of a garage.

MorningAJ said...

I once had a friend who sat transfixed for hours because she spotted a tomato stalk on the floor and mistook it for a spider!

The Weaver of Grass said...

Your stories made me feel not such a wuss after all, although I am not awfully keen on Frugals information that we all eat one or two spiders in our lifetime!! I did once read about a girl who read the same about flies and used to eat one on her toast every morning to get it out of the way!!

Gwil W said...

I suspect it wasn't a tarantula. Most likely a common house spider and completely harmless. But a bathroom beast? Well, I once saw a ghost in the bathroom. Years later I saw a wax model of said ghost in a Celtic museum in Austria. It was identical to the last detail.

Gwil W said...

Cro's story, mmm? Joke shop spider maybe . .

Mac n' Janet said...

I'm not particularly afraid of spiders, but I expect them to know their place and in my bathroom is not that place. If my husband is near he "rescues" them and takes them outside, if he's not near I fear it's curtains for the spider.

Em Parkinson said...

During my 'A' levels, Mr Spider, as probably SHE became known, appeared on my bedroom wall at around midnight one night, rustling my pictures of Paul Weller cut out of the music papers until I eventually turned the light on and made her acquaintance. I ran upstairs to my mother and slept on the pull out bed in the sitting room for the next month. Mr Spider was immense and sounds like a close relative of your friend. Only now, over thirty years later, can I use the glass and card....NOT paper......method!

Terry and Linda said...

Well, I'm not very fond of spiders myself. You were much kinder...I would have smashed the thing. I didn't used to be that way, but after be bitten and then being extremely ill and now have a hole in my arm from the bite...I always eliminate spiders.

Linda
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