Last week was my first week at my new job and the experience of acclimating to my new gig took much out of me. I worked late on Thursday night and could barely manage to stay awake long enough to eat dinner. Immediately after scarfing down some semi-edible bachelor, chow I stumbled sluggishly into my bed.
When I got under the covers I immediately felt something odd. There was something —somethings—under there with me! I felt 6 furry creatures and instantly came to the obvious conclusion—there was a pack of Brazilian goliath tarantulas in my bed. I should let it be known that I have a touch of arachnophobia. I pretty much always think there are spiders in my bed, but never had I felt their furry spider parts on me.
Powered by a million horsepower of pure terror, I shot out of the bed and levitated about 3 feet in the air flailing my arms and legs violently at invisible attackers. In flight, I heard a voice screaming something like “Ohmigawdwathefawk!” and this terrified me even more until I realized it was my own. As soon as toe one hit the floor I started grabbing for anything solid enough smite giant, bed-dwelling arachnids. As I am something of a student of the martial arts, I was lucky enough to have situated my bed in the middle of a very respectable samurai arsenal. With ninja-like agility, I seized the nearest katana (for you rookies, that’s a big damn sword) and threw down my meanest-looking ninja stance.
By this time, my bed covers were undulating as the plate-sized monsters, who, with their cover blown, now prepared to leap from beneath the sheets and attach themselves to my face with Ridlyscottian cunning (it happens). I looked at the 32-inch blade in my hand and thought maybe I could benefit from some more firepower—something in the megaton range—but I realized that there was no time to pay the Russian black market a visit and I would have to face these beasts octomanos a mano. I readied myself to strike down upon the villains with great vengeance and furious anger and threw back the sheets fully expecting to meet my end, and fully prepared to do so fighting in accordance with the warrior’s code.
To my surprise, tossing back the covers revealed something totally unexpected. Looking up at me with what I read to be total feline confusion, lay 6 tiny kittens, their developing brains straining to comprehend why a large human was screaming at them while brandishing a 3-foot long knife.
Kittens! It had not occurred to me that my cat, who had given birth to 6 kittens a week before might stash her brood in my bed. I suppose she had not foreseen a brush with a Benny-Hannaesque demise when she put them there but she really should have known that baby kittens feel EXACTLY like giant Brazilian goliath tarantulas—I mean everybody knows that!
After I changed my underpants and took a dozen or so Valium®, I sat mamma cat down and explained to her that she should refrain from putting her kittens in places where I would least expect to find them as I watched a very scary movie about spiders when I was 7 and tend to react with extreme prejudice when small, furry things are placed in my bed without my consent.
I placed the ball of kittens back in her kitty cage, tucked them snuggly in and went to bed knowing that there was very little chance that any giant spiders would have used the chaos as a distraction to sneak attack me. I mean, what are the odds of that?
The next morning, I went to into my clothes hamper to retrieve a pair of socks. Instead of socks, I felt a writhing ball of fur. After levitating, screaming inaudible obscenities and again brandishing a weapon, I realized that my cat had stuffed her progeny in my hamper. It would appear that she doesn’t listen very well. She just pretends to understand, but I personally think she doesn’t even speak English. It’s a lot like going through the drive thru at Taco Bell really.
I am now accustomed to finding baby kittens in just about any dark and soft place from sock drawers to pant legs. I no longer grab for cutlery when I grab fuzz instead of linen. And that is what worries me. This might be just what the giant Brazilian goliath tarantulas want from me. This might be all part of their plan!
Damn you William Shatner, damn the Kingdom of the Spiders and double damn the Animal Planet!
