Spiders

Last year around this same time, I wrote about snakes in our school. This year, we have spiders.

And not just spiders (which I'm not a fan of, but I can handle). These are human sized spiders. These are monsters. These are scary. These are the biggest spiders I have ever seen in my life.

No joke.

Last week, as Liz and I were leaving school, we walked into the hallway to find a boy pacing and talking to himself. "Oh my goodness, I cannot believe this. Biggest. Thing. Ever. Oh my goodness. I am going to faint." He was repeating this as he walked back and forth. His face was red, and he was sweating.

I said, "Are you okay?" He stopped and quickly replied, "There is the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life right there."

Let me first explain that Chatfield is known for its bugs (and mice-and snakes). Our school backs up to a huge golf course, the foothills of the Rockies, and open space. We get our share of nasty looking bugs, spiders, mice and snakes in our building. At this point, most of us are used to seeing spiders in the bathrooms, the hallways, the classrooms, the offices. They have become common place. And these spiders we see are not small. They average in size to be about the size of a quarter.

So, the boy pointed to what was the "biggest spider he had ever seen in his life," I rolled my eyes as I looked at Liz, thinking this boy was exaggerating the size of this sucker, and glanced to where he was pointing.

I gasped. Liz screamed. My heart stopped. Sitting in the corner was the biggest spider I have ever seen in my life. This spider was the size of a tennis ball. It was hairy. Its body was the size of a half dollar, and its legs were the length of my fingers.

(To make a long story short, a fellow male teacher came and rescued the spider by opening the outside door and guiding it outside).

The following day, I got to work around 6:30 a.m. There were only two other teachers in my hallway at that hour, so the school was quiet. I unlocked my door. I opened my door.

I screamed bloody murder.

From under my doorway came (I'm pretty sure the exact same) spider. He had been resting under my doorway, and I scared him awake. As I opened the door, he came crawling at me with such speed that he nearly crawled up my leg before I could even scream.

Then the scream came, and I went running. I knew the teacher next door would be wondering what I was screaming about, so I ran into his room to explain my scream.

I panted (as my hands shook uncontrollably), "I'm sorry to scare you. A spider. Huge. Massive. Come look." Kyle rolled his eyes, expecting me to be slightly exaggerating (or a lot exaggerating). He humored me, though, and came to look.

As he came into the hallway, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Holy moly, that is the biggest spider I have ever seen."

Within seconds, another teacher came running to my rescue. He'd heard my scream. "Are you okay?" he asked as he rounded the corner.

"I'm so sorry to alarm you. Look at that spider. Nearly crawled up my leg. Scared me." (As you can tell, I could barely speak full sentences).

Mark, who is the football coach and a big, burly man, also stopped in his tracks. "Yep, she's a big one."

"What should we do?" Mark had to think it through, but then decided he couldn't ruin his karma by killing the spider, so he decided to rescue to nasty thing. He came back with a cup and a piece of paper. He put the cup over the spider. He slid the paper under the cup. He picked up the monster and went to take him outside.

He came back a minute later. "Are you sure I got him? When I went to throw him outside, nothing came out of the cup. Is he still in your room?"

"Um, no, I'm pretty confident you got him. Are you sure he's not crawling on you? What if you turn around to teach and write on your board, and this massive spider is crawling up your back?"

Mark chuckled and went about his day.

I am forever scared. Now, I am scanning my room. Now, I slam my door with my fist before opening it. Now, I am on high alert.

(Since this incident, over a dozen tennis-ball sized spiders have been found in the building. According to Josh, I probably found one of the babies and the mama is hanging out in the ceiling (much larger than the one I found)).

The picture doesn't do justice to the size of this thing, but you get an idea of how large and ugly it is.