It was a dark and stormy night…
Saturday evening, Jessie and I returned to our home, fresh from a successful day: we met up with Kelly and Chelsea in Chiang Rai, grabbed a nice American breakfast, drank some soda at Chiang Rai beach, indulged in a fancy lunch at Pizza Company and then some coffee and Wawee. We ventured to the Saturday Walking Street and even hit up the Night Bazaar. A “Greatest Hits of Chiang Rai” kind of day.
But then we went home.
We were cheerfully discussing our excursions when I went into my room. Something caught my eye. On the wall, next to the head of my bed, was an oddly-shaped item. Black, thin legs whose wingspan would have easily covered my entire hand. I paused. A flower? Fungus? Crustacean?
Then I counted: it had eight legs.
“What the hell is this???????? Jessie!!!!!!” I shrieked as I sprinted out of the room.
Jessie came out of her room, looked askance at me, sauntered into mine as I squirmed, wringing my hands outside the door.
“Oh my god ! What is that!”
A spider. A monstrous, bigger than life, spindly-legged, hairy-bodied arachnid. Of hell.
Cue squealing.
(this is sort of what it looked like. The site I got this off of claimed it was a huntsman spider)
What do we do? How do we kill it? It’s too big for a shoe! I don’t want to go downstairs – I don’t want to take my eyes off of it! We can’t lose sight of it – we can’t allow this to live in our house! Oh my god this thing has been living in our house! Is it poisonous? Does it have pincers? Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, what IS that thing? Should we get one of our neighbors to come over and kill the beast? I want to take a picture of it! Where’s my camera! Oh crap, its underneath that pile of stuff over there. Don’t get it! Don’t make any sudden movements or sounds! You may scare him into fleeing!
As we panicked, hyperventilated and squawked, two different beetles attacked Jessie’s hair Kamikaze-style. We ran into an unoccupied room, fleeing the assault.
Mutiny was upon us.
I racked my brain, trying to address the most pertinent question: how the hell do we destroy this monster, this monster who seemed to be calling his brethren insects to his aid? I remembered Chelsea, who had a similar beast invade her abode. She used an entire can of bug spray on it, I recalled.
That was it. This was just the situation for chemical warfare.
What kind of spray do we have? I have hair spray, Jessie offered. I searched the bathroom, hoping that the school had left us some hitherto unknown savior of insecticide. No such luck. Then, I saw the Windex.
We decided to go for a two-pronged approach. Jessie would approach with the dust pan, I would hold the tub we used to do our laundry, whilst double-fisting with the Windex.
As we approached, we continued to squeal. We approached, then backed away. Twice. Even Jessie (queen of animal annihilation and gecko corpse disposal) balked at the prospect of getting close to the monstrosity lingering so near my pillow. Finally, I counted down:
1, 2, 3!!!
Jessie attacked, thrusting the bottom of the dustpan vigorously into the wall with a vicious war cry. He scampered up the wall! He came to a stop five inches higher up on the wall. As the hardened warriors we are, we did the only thing we could.
We ran like hell. Screaming at the tops of our lungs.
Once outside the room, after ample squealing and hand flapping and frantic hopping, we regrouped. Time for a new tactic. Hit the bastard with a sneak chemical attack! This time, I would lead with a lethal onslaught of generic store-brand Windex. Then, as the creature lolled about, dazed by the toxicity of my weapon, Jessie would run him through with the dust pan. That should teach the sucker a lesson.
We approached once more, eyes narrowed, confident, battle-ready.
Ok… go!
With hatred in my heart, I squeezed the trigger with all the muscle my index finger could muster.
The evil ogre scurried not up, but down! Towards the floor! Screaming rang through the room. I continued my attack, shrieking all the while, as he ran towards the floor, until the conniving SOB ran under my bed.
HE’S UNDER THE BED! OH MY GOD! HE’S UNDER THE BED! We bellowed as we scampered out of the room, arms flailing.
Ok. New plan. In keeping with our overarching strategy of keeping the bastard in our line of vision, we decided on another team approach. I would pull the bed towards us while Jessie crouched on the floor to spy on the devil. Luckily, he was unmoved by the loud clanging of my bed shifting position over his body. At last, his cover was removed, and he sat, complacently vulnerable to an overhead attack. He moved a little drunkenly, we thought – ha! Sensing our enemy’s weakness, we advanced on the field of battle once more, moving in for the kill.
This time, we split our offensive, with Jessie on one side of the bed and me on the other, holding the dust pan should he retreat my direction.
Jessie fired! We screamed! He retreated! This time towards me!
I ran away! Jessie followed me!
We re-grouped, faster this time, with Jessie at the fore, firing the Windex at his enormous body. I stood a half-step behind, with my dustpan at the ready, for real this time.
OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! TAKE THAT, YOU BASTARD! AND THAT! AHHHH! OH MY GOD HE’S RUNNING TOWARDS YOUR CLOTHES! HE’S ON YOUR HAMPER! OH MY GODDDDDDDD!
My fear dissolved.
I stepped forward as Jessie retreated. I watched the SOB crawl up my overflowing hamper with venom. Suddenly, I felt murderous. My thoughts were abruptly clear and cold. That was the last damn straw, little man. You will NOT escape into my clothes, planting eggs of your satanic spawn as you go. You will not hide in the folds of my garments as I dump the hamper out, or remove my clothing piece by piece, searching for you, you fiendish imp. You have gone too far now. You will die.
With a deeper sense of purpose and a clearer intent, I leapt forward, screaming, stabbing the bottom of the dustpan into his grotesque shape. His legs collapsed, but he remained on my hamper. I lunged again, still screaming, this time making more solid contact with his shaggy body.
He fell to the floor, his legs crumpled. Just to make sure, I smacked him again. It was over. We had defeated the Colossal Arachnid King of Chiang Rai.
Unfortunately, our night was just beginning.
After congratulating ourselves on a hard-fought battle, riding high on our adrenaline rush of victory, we settled in to our respective rooms to pass the remainder of the evening in peace. A storm grew steadily in strength outside, and I wondered idly about the beginning of monsoon season, and what the storms would be like. Would monsoon season be inconvenient?
Then the lights went out.
Damn it, I thought. I was just wondering where I had put my phone with its handy flashlight accessory when the lights flickered back on. Phew, I thought. After our grueling combat, I hardly think we should have to endure an electricity-less night as well. I grabbed my phone just in case.
Ten minutes later, the lights went out again. I waited for them to come back on. The storm became louder, more violent. The winds forced open my shudders, which began to bang loudly against the house and themselves as my room was periodically lit by the eerie luminescence of the lightning.
You have got to be kidding me, I thought.
Then a loud crack rang out. I heard a thunderous boom immediately outside my windows. The shudders banged even louder, and seemed to be hitting something. Oh my god, something is falling on our house, I thought. I leapt out of bed, wanting to be as far from my windows as possible.
I heard Jessie yell from her room and we both ran to our doors to consult each other, me with my wimpy flashlight from my phone and her with her crank-up REI flashlight.
Then lightening flashed bright through the sky, and we saw it.
Through the opening of our house, we saw the tree. Two trees, actually. A tree from the west side of our front yard had fallen on a tree in the center of our yard, splitting it in two. Together, they collapsed in front of our house, brushing our roof and shudders on their way down, landing neatly parallel to the front of our house. Their branches covered the driveway leading to the garage and homes behind ours.
We stood there, thunder clambering overhead and wind and rain smacking us through the opening. I looked at Jessie. Jessie cranked her flashlight. Let’s go downstairs, shall we?
Armed with our measly flashlights, we took refuge downstairs. The floor of our “living room” was flooded with water. The back wall of house was leaking, giving off the impression that the wall was crying. This prompted a remark from me likening our current situation to a scenario in a horror film. The remark was not appreciated by my companion.
We stepped outside briefly to assess the damage from ground level, using the frequent lightning to see. Pelted with rain and frightened by the fury of the storm, we promptly scurried back in. We could see flashlights spinning about in the windows of the girls’ dormitory. No one had power.
We settled into our kitchen and waited for it to pass. All of the sudden, Jessie bolted out of her chair, screeching. I followed suit, making for the door. Then I stopped. What happened? What touched you?
Nothing! I thought I saw something! You must have made some weird shadow or something! I just need to stand here, not touching anything for a while.
We both started laughing hysterically. Clearly, the night was beginning to fray our nerves.
So we handled it the way any sensible, capable young women would: we made a video.
Ultimately, the storm lasted for a good 2.5 hours, and was one of the most intense thunderstorms I’ve ever experienced.
Here’s hoping that’s enough excitement to get us through the quarter, karma-wise.
holy moly, ali. I am incredibly grateful this did NOT happen while I was there.
ReplyDeleteside note: how have you gone an entire semester without bugspray?