Shirley, Jack and Billy

My Dear Fellows & Dear Princess,

Oooh, I didn't half get a fright in the shower this morning. I happened to glance down and nearly let out a scream.

Now stop that. For goodness sake. You people with your filthy minds racing ahead of my story. Anyway, that wouldn't cause a scream. A whimper, a giggle, possibly a sigh, but no scream.

But no. What caused me FRIGHT and ALARM was that there was a SPIDER on me! In the shower! Getting in there with me while I was IN THE NIP, if you please! How bloody rude!

At first I tried to rinse it down the plughole, but then I felt a bit sorry for the little bleeder. I mean. I suppose he was probably as taken aback as I was and perhaps had just mistaken my fluffy bits for his mum. I mean, who knows really?

So instead I ceded territory, and finished my shower squished up against one side of the cubicle to avoid standing on him. I don't know if I was successful. While I was washing the soap out of my eyes he disappeared and I don't know if he went down the plug, or escaped into Er Indoors's face-towel. I suppose we'll all find out soon enough. 

It made me think of Lisa and HER pet spider. She didn't mean to keep him as a pet. In fact, she LOATHES spiders with a passion. If she had found a spider on herself in the shower, she would still be PTSD about it five years later. But her story started years ago when she called Er Indoors to tell her she had a "MASSIVE F***ING SPIDER" in her living room and to ask what should she do about it.

This was when Lisa lived in London and we were in Edinburgh. So it wasn't like I could just pop around to put it out the window for her. And in fact ALL of her male friends were unavailable at that time for one reason or another.

"You should just step on it," we suggested. 

"OH MY GOOOOOOD," she recoiled. "But it's HUUUUGE. I'd be able to hear its little BONES BREAKING." So that suggestion was rejected.

"How about you Hoover it up?" I tried.

"Look. This b*stard is MASSIVE," she reiterated. "If I were to suck it up the Hoover it would probably set up home in there and come out the next time I did a Spring-clean."

So no to that as well. Also, she daren't put it under a cup and throw it out of the window in case it escaped halfway through the operation. In the end she came up with a plan of her own.

"I've put a glass casserole dish on top of it," she said. "So it's contained. It's in Spider-Supermax. The spider situ is now in lockdown."

We got a text later that evening. The spider had been freaking her out by staring at her while she was trying to watch telly. She had to kick the glass bowl into her bedroom for the evening, then kick it back into the living room at bedtime so it couldn't make faces at her as she tried to fall asleep.

Her plan, she told us, was to STARVE the spider into submission. Wait for it to die of malnutrition and THEN throw it out of the window. How long do spiders take to die, she asked us.

My only reference material was "Charlotte's Web" and I didn't think that was wholly reliable. "Can't be more than a week," we guessed.

"Well the f*cker is still here," she told us three weeks later. "It hasn't even lost weight."

Another few days went by and she texted us a further update. "It's spinning a web in there. I think it's mocking me."

Essentially, she learned to live with it while she waited for one of her male London friends to come back from holiday so he could take care of it for her. But by this stage it was practically like a small hairy flat-mate. "I've decided to name it," she said on one phone call. "It's called 'Bastard'." 

She worried that the longer she kept it in there, the more bitter and vengeful the spider was becoming. And - should it ever escape - that it would come after her and bite her on the bum. She was very relieved when her mate Paul got back from holiday. She instructed him that he was to "terminate with extreme prejudice" and gleefully texted us once Paul had flushed it.

Still, I can't help but feel that her life was a little emptier after Bastard had gone. It gave her something to tell us about every evening and I'm almost certain she talked to it. All abuse, but still, it's contact of a sort.

As for me, shower-spider aside, my day has been light on incident. I'm still feeling a bit ropey, actually. I thought I was completely recovered but this bug (I've decided it is a stomach bug) seems to be hanging around. I was up at 3am this morning, considering my bucket. In the end, I didn't need it, but like the Thames Flood Barrier, it's reassuring to know it's there.

So I have been very quiet and watched a lot of old films today. I've had a bit of a Billy Wilder marathon with "Irma La Douce" and "The Apartment" and "Kiss Me, Stupid". I had never seen that last one before. I really enjoyed it because Kim Novak was so pretty and because Dean Martin plays a drinking, womanising singer called "Dino" in it. 

How DID they come up with these wacky ideas?

Now the sun is going down and I'm considering what to watch next. It could be time for a horror movie. Er Indoors is back tomorrow so I'd better fit in as much Vincent Price as I can while the going is good.

I wonder if there's one about spiders? 

S.