Last night I crawled into bed, cozied myself under the covers, and then rolled onto my back and opened my eyes. And saw, directly above me on the ceiling, a spider. Admittedly, it was a very small spider. Like, half the size of my pinky fingernail. Still, I could envision it dropping down onto me while I slept, drinking my eye juice and laying eggs in my ears. Because that's what spiders do.

It was small enough that I would have killed it myself, but I wasn't sure I could reach it, so I yelled for Rob, who was still up, to please come kill a spider! He came right away, without complaint. As I scooted to the far side of the bed and watched uneasily, I was very grateful to him for being so willing to always perform this duty. When we celebrate our 50th anniversary, Rob will have killed over 500 spiders for me. Is there any better measure of true love?

Except this time, something went wrong. He had it covered with a paper towel, and as he was about to smoosh it, I said, "Don't let it fall onto the bed!" and right then the fucking spider fell onto the bed. Or, rather, dropped itself onto the bed. Because he hadn't actually killed it yet. It sort of dangled in midair for a moment, and Rob grasped at it but it was too small to catch, and then we both saw it descend to the bed.

And then we couldn't see it anymore. It was camouflaged by the covers. I might perhaps have had a slight conniption at this point. You know, because THERE IS A SPIDER IN MY BED. If the spider had been any larger, I would have leaped out of the bed and slept on the sofa or something. But it was really quite tiny. So I sat there, frozen and wide-eyed, not sure what action to take other than the freaking out. Rob launched immediately into his calming tactics, telling me some shit about the spider being just as eager to get away from me as I was to get away from it. To which I responded, "No it's not! It wants to drink my eye juice and lay eggs in my ears! That's what spiders DO, Rob!"

He returned to the living room, and I searched the bed for the spider. When I didn't find it, I flapped all the covers back except for the sheet, thinking that might deter the spider from crawling toward me. And then I settled back into bed, albeit in an extremely unsettled manner, trying to convince myself that it probably wasn't even on the bed anymore, that it had surely found its way to the floor and was heading for the shower where it could terrorize me in the morning.

Eventually I was able to relax, and I was almost asleep when I suddenly had to sneeze. So I sat up and grabbed a tissue off the nightstand. And as I was blowing my nose, I felt a tiny tickle on my side. Typically I would have brushed it away without a thought, but I suppose my subconscious was still alert to the possibility of the spider, and so I lifted the sheet and glanced down at the right side of my stomach. It happened in slow motion, you know? I had left the lamp on for when Rob came to bed, so I saw it all quite clearly. The sheet sliding away. The spider sitting on my skin. Staring at me.

I silent-shrieked and flicked it off me, and as it landed nearby on the blanket I yelled, "ROB!!! I found it!" And then I smashed it with the tissue in my hand. Rob came running in and I managed to convey that the spider? The one he hadn't been able to kill? The one that had fallen onto our bed? IT WAS JUST CRAWLING ON MY BARE SKIN.

Headed north, surely, to drink my eye juice and lay eggs in my ears.