A Story of Great Peril

When you move from America to Africa, you discover all kinds of blessings you’d been enjoying without even realizing it. To be fair, there are many new blessings you discover in Africa that you never enjoyed in America. But one of the benefits I’ve discovered I miss is a brother working right around the corner who can come take care of little creepy-crawlies for me!

I had previously dubbed Jonathan “Sir Spider Slayer” due to his marvelous ability to remove spiders from my office with a minimum of fuss and mess. In retrospect, ah! how tame and mild were the tiny creatures with whom he dealt on my behalf. For I have now to tell you a tale of great bravery: of how I, Leah, had to deal with a gigantic spider on my very own!

There was a movement on my curtain. I went to investigate, and discovered the largest wild (i.e. in contrast to caged or stuffed tarantulas) spider I’ve ever seen. Without exaggeration, its body was nearly the size of a quarter, and its thick legs extended a good two inches in every direction: it was brown and hairy and UGLY! And here it was, loose in my office, and there was no Jonathan to call on for assistance.

Quickly I ran to a co-worker’s office and asked what I should do. “Oh, you call one of the guys on staff and he will take care of it for you,” I was half hoping her response would be. But instead she calmly told me that I should get some insecticide from the cleaning staff and spray the vile thing (well, she didn’t quite put it that way). So off I ran to beg, borrow, or steal some insecticide – and of course while I was off doing that, the spider went and hid itself, meaning that I came back to an office with a spider at large, and no idea where it was.

At last I located it and began to spray it; and instantly it dropped and was again lost. This deadly game of hide-and-seek continued for a few minutes, with me spraying vigorously when I saw it, and the thing skittering away or dropping out of sight almost instantly – and then there I was, in my open-toed sandals, agitatedly shaking curtains, moving furniture, trying to find the gruesome creature before it found me. At last it dropped neatly into my wastebasket – which, for the record, looks like this:

No matter; I gingerly picked the wastebasket up and ran it outside, as the spider and I eyed each other warily and I shook it down every time it threatened to climb up the side. Midway to the dumpster, it squeezed its bulbous body through one of the holes and dropped to the ground. At least it was out of my office – whew!

Back I went to a fume-filled room, thankful to have survived the harrowing ordeal.