Sunday, November 21, 2010

Treacherous Happenings

The jungle is a very volatile place to live, and sometimes I forget that. But other times, I feel lucky to escape unscathed....

Vicki and I had spent a nice, quiet weekend at Taricaya, free of stress and drama. We relaxed all day, got some reading done, and ate way too much food for how inactive we were. After a splendid evening, we strolled back to our bungalow to get ready for bed. Vicki brushed her teeth, and I went to grab my towel to wash my face. And that´s when things took a turn for the worse. There, cleverly tucked behind the folds of my towel, was a snarling, purely EVIL, spider. With GLOWING EYES!! And this wasn´t just ANY spider. This was the Mother of All Spiders. She was eerily translucent, spindly, and about the size of my hand. She was so big, I swore I could see the purple filigree of her veins pulsing through rancid limbs.

And this over-grown, over-disgusting creature was in OUR room. While we were trying to sleep! The nerve! So much for sweet dreams. We´ve gotten used to most spiders, but there was NO way in the world we could sleep in peace knowing that the eight-legged devil was creeping over us.

I pathetically whined to Vicki to come see the horror that was our life. She came out and we were both frozen there, not knowing how to deal with this THING. After ten minutes or so of pannicking, we decided to arm ourselves for battle. As if cotton could sheild us, we covered our bodies in pants, long-sleeve shirts, gloves, and shoes.
We strategized our plan of attack. The least amount of commotion was ideal because we knew that the second the giant started scurrying, there would be total chaos and all would be lost!! We had to be quick and efficient in our movements. Ninja status. We desperately searched around, for ideas, for lethal weapons, for a god, we needed SOMETHING! I know we´re supposed to be doing conservation here, but screw it, that THING had to go. It was either me or him. We also wanted to be good bungalow-mates and not just sweep it into our neighbors room. That´s just asking for bad karma. The arachnid had to be obliterated! (for the sake of the people)!

So it was decided. Murder. A foolhardy scheme to bring the spider to it´s impending doom. Vicki had killed the last irksome insect, so we both knew it was my turn. I had to face my fear, slay the DRAGON!!! Weapon of choice: Vicki´s old tennis shoe (By the way, thank you Vicki for gallantly volunteering those shoes. You brave SOLE hehe). Armed with blugeroon in hand, we positioned ourselves. Vicki on standby with another weapon to get a second hit in if needed. I took a few moments to steady my shaking hand and catch my breath. I lined up, and as I swung, I let out a manic war cry, "PREPARE TO DIEEEEEE!!!"

I swear time stopped for an instant. Had my clobbering job WORKED?!?!?! Was the spider still at LARGE (haha)?? But sure enough, to my relief, I had hit the spider "dead" on and it´s massive corpse collapsed to the floor in an ugly heap. Vicki quickly sweeped out the twitching carnage for the vultures and the maggots to finish. That´s right, don´t mess with us. Resistance is futile.

SIGGHHHH. Just recounting this story gives me the heebie-jeebies. Especially because after the first enormous spider, we found three others that looked similar to it but smaller. We fear that the spider layed eggs in our bungalow in a final act of revenge and that we will now have 8 billion 8-legged freaks running around, haunting us.

If I come out of the jungle insane, you can blame the spider.

2 comments:

  1. For a known arachniphobe (one who used to whine incessantly for her parents to kill tick-sized spiders in the house) to face her fears and duel turtle-sized spiders is impressive. The next step in the Seven-Step Journey of Spider Enlightenment, of course, is to co-exist with and even embrace the universal quality of spiderness. She who can't come to terms with spiders in this existense may come back with eight legs in the next.

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  2. You guys are dorks hahahaha. I don´t know why your parents ever thought it would be the safest idea to put you of all people in a Peruvian jungle but hey, it keeps me amused!!! I give thanks that there aren´t spiders that big here! Suerte, sounds like you´ll need it!!

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