It's the ones you don't see...

Aaaand the hits just keep on coming. I'm not sure how Zahava's nerves will hold up under the strain... but at least this stuff makes for good blog fodder.

Here's a recap of the latest adventure at chez treppenwitz:

Last night I was feeling sleepy around the time we'd finally managed to wrestle Yonah into his bed, so I said good night to Zahava and left her in the living room watching TV.

My bedtime routine goes something like this:

1. Brush teeth (yes, topless... Zahava is my style guru!)
2. Wash face
3. Clear accumulated clothes, books and dogs from bed
4. stretch out in newly cleared bed and check email on iPad
5. Set my iTunes onto the 'bedtime' playlist which has all the relaxing stuff
6. Surf the news sites (I know... sort of undoes the relaxing music, but I must...)
7. Set Alarm
8. Roll over and go instantly to sleep

Last night went exactly according to plan... except with the addition of an additional step between #5 and # 6. We'll call this step 5.5

Step 5.5 consisted of Zahava coming downstairs to our bedroom, glancing at her side of the bed (yes, she had her glasses on at this point) and letting out a blood curdling scream.

My initial reaction wasn't what you might expect. I simply glanced over at her and said "What? What now?"

She shrieked that there was a huge hairy Tarantula on her pillow... but I wasn't convinced. You see, Zahava's eyesight is not what one might call 'good'. She sometimes mistakes common household items for snakes, lizards... spiders.

In short, it's often easier to ask her to take a closer look than to actually investigate for myself. In this case, it would have meant rolling over from my comfortable position and lifting myself up on one elbow in order to see what all the fuss was about. I love my wife... but that's a lot of exertion for something that was almost certainly a false alarm (admit it ladies... you've never wanted me more!).

As I continued to read my iPad I realized that the shrieking wasn't going away as it normally would if Zahava had mistaken, say, a belt for a cobra. So I rolled over, lifted myself up on one elbow and damned if there wasn't a tarantula on her pillow! It wasn't huge, as tarantulas go... maybe as big around as the bottom of a large water glass. But I had to admit I wouldn't want to sleep with it on my pillow.

I don't know how it is in other families, but the division of labor in our household goes something like this: I grill meat, unscrew balky jars, assist the children with vomiting (and the clean-up of same)... and kill bugs. Zahava does pretty much everything else.

Since this clearly fell into my area of responsibility, I sent Zahava back upstairs so I could contemplate my options. I suppose I could have let her stay in the room, but this sort of operation requires a certain zen that is impossible to achieve when someone is shrieking every time the spider - or the person trying to capture it - makes the slightest move.

After a few moments I decided I needed some tools, so I yelled up for Zahava to bring down a couple of paper cups, bowls and plates. I still didn't have a clear plan, but I knew that picking the thing up with my bare hands was not in the cards.

A moment later Zahava came tip-toeing down the stairs with the paper goods. When she glanced over at her pillow she gave out another involuntary shriek and began begging me to tell her what I planned to do. I still wasn't sure... except for the part where I needed to get her the hell out of the room to keep from catching her jumpiness.

Zahava's parting request as she scampered back upstairs was "Promise me you won't get tarantula guts on my pillow". I told her I'd try not to, but stopped short of a promise.

The truth is, nothing could have been easier. I put a paper plate down next to the spider... gave it a good smack with waterlogged issue of National Geographic (left over from Zahava's water pipe adventure)... and the thing accommodatingly rolled belly up onto the plate. I put a paper bowl over it, carried it into the bathroom... and in one swift movement, gave it a Tidybowl burial at sea.

I made a check to make sure there were no other furry arachnids on the bed, climbed back in to rejoin my bedtime routine where I'd left off, and gave the 'all clear' to Zahava.

I have no idea what time Zahava actually came to bed, but I'm guessing she was pretty rattled. I say this because when I woke up this morning, most of the upstairs lights were still on, and the front door was unlocked. Both of these are 'no-nos' in Zahava's book... up there with running with scissors and going outside without sunscreen. For Zahava, forgetting to turn off the lights and lock up would be enough to substantiate a temporary insanity defense... which, in a way, is probably an accurate description of her state of mind last night.

It was only while I was riding to work this morning that a creepy thought occurred to me; Are tarantulas solitary creatures... or do they run in packs?