Arachnophobia, or why I will never do laundry again

I telework on Wednesdays when a seminar or conference or important meeting doesn't require my presence in DC. Unfortunately, more weeks than not I am in the city, but this week turned out to be "normal" and I got to work from home. I "slept in" (YAY 6:30!), drank my pot of coffee, got the kids up and dressed, dropped them at daycare, ran to Trader Joe's and was home at the time I'm normally walking into my office.

One of the reasons I like teleworking so much is because I get caught up on my laundry - I take a break every hour or so to run downstairs and flip the laundry loads, and then fold it all in the evening (although I pair up our socks during conference calls. Better than playing Angry Birds. NOT that I do that at the office.). I got a ton of work done today and also manged to run most of the laundry through.

Stopped working at 5:00 and ran down to change the laundry one more time before getting the kids. While pulling socks out of the hamper and making sure they were turned the right side out (note to self: teach the kids to do this when they take their socks off) I saw a big black spider. I thought to myself "God I hate those plastic bugs, they are too real looking anymore" and picked the spider up. And it started to crawl in my hand.

Have I ever mentioned my extreme fear of spiders? I know it's irrational, but the little fuckers scare the piss out of me. Literally, in this case. I screamed like a girl, shook it off my hand, peed myself a bit, and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind me. I went into the kitchen and scrubbed my hand and arm with very hot water and soap (to get rid of the spider cooties, of course), took a deep breath, and went back downstairs. You see, when I ran for safety, I left the washer lid open. I needed to close it because my OCD is almost as strong as my arachnophobia and the idea of leaving the house with the washer lid open had me on the verge of hives.

I peeked around the door, and there the bastard sat - in the middle of the floor, like it owned the house. I think it gave me the finger. There was a Tupperware bowl on the dryer (I have no idea why, please don't ask) so I ran in, grabbed the bowl, trapped the spider under it, slammed the washer shut, and ran back up the stairs. I may or may not have been screaming while I did this.

I called Tom while I drove to get the kids to tell him he needed to take care of the spider when he got home. Due to a clusterfuck of an evening (I'll tell you about it later) that didn't happen. So here I sit, two floors above the (hopefully still) trapped spider, nervous and on edge because THERE IS A BIG DAMN SPIDER IN MY HOUSE. What if it gets out from under the bowl? It looked pretty strong. If it gets out, that means it will be loose in my house or it will grab a butcher knife, come upstairs, and slit my throat while I sleep. Or worse, it may sit on me. I could wake up and IT WOULD BE ON ME.

I don't think I'll be getting much sleep tonight. I certainly won't be finishing the laundry.

UPDATE: Tom went downstairs to check out the situation. The spider was still under the Tupperware bowl (thank God!). He said when he lifted the bowl off, the spider reared back in spider attack mode (oh dear God!) but he caught it up (OH DEAR GOD!) and released it in the back yard. So now I'll be able to sleep tonight. Although I swear I can hear it scratching at the patio door...