My near brush with death...

Ok, I've already confessed that I hate shopping, right? Have I ever talked about my dislike of cold weather? What about how my issues with crowds and noise levels?

Welcome to the Christmas season!

Oh joy. I just wanna hide out till May, but life won't let me. Today, I had to brave it all. Well, not so much the cold since it got up to nearly 80 today, but it WAS a dreary wet day if that counts for something. It's going to be COLD on Wednesday. The high won't even see 60! I may freeze solid! Just knowing that such a horrid cold front is on it's way was enough to make me think that it was cold today too. You know, except for that part that it wasn't. But I'm getting off subject. The point is that when I woke up this morning, I knew that it was going to be a rough day. I knew that because today was the day that I was going to start Christmas shopping.

The plan was for me to get the kids off to school, go to the bank and then start off easy with Hobby Lobby (which is such a wonderful place that I sometimes forget that I'm actually doing the shopping thing when I'm there) first. Target was next on the list. I don't care much for Target as it's only a slight step above Walmart, but it had to be done. Bed, Bath and Beyond held one item that I needed, then I would zoom over to the mother of all panic attacks - the mall. There I would get the water filter from Sears and then make a beeline for Bath and Body works for the hand soap gifts.

Yep, that was the plan. It started off pretty good. The kids got on the bus just fine. Then I came back inside...and decided to make a cup of tea first. I don't know how it took me two hours to drink that cup of tea. I'm going to blame my procrastination on extreme anxiety and not Farmville. What? I needed to plant some blueberries! Blueberries are good. And there may have been some laundry done in that missing two hours. The floor REALLY needed sweeping too. And I couldn't just leave the breakfast dishes unwashed.

Around 9:30 I realized that there was no way I was going to get everything done if I didn't get going. Grabbing my keys, I took a deep cleansing breath, jumped in the van and drove down my driveway. When I got to the mailbox, I remembered that I needed to mail a bill, so I turned around and went back into the house to get it. And since I was bringing that to the mailbox, I figured that I should send Cheaper by the Dozen back to Netflix. Of course, I had to find it first. It was almost 9:45 by the time I finally made it back to the mailbox. I opened it and realized that I hadn't picked up the mail on Saturday so before I could put mail IN the box, I first had to take mail OUT of the box.

That's when I saw it. The agent of death.

He took the form of a brown spider. I did not yell (but I might have jumped a bit). I simply swatted the demon away with the mail that was already in my hand. Then as quickly as I could I made the exchange. Incoming mail was taken out of the box, outgoing mail went in. I brought the mail to my van. Then it was on to the bank.

After sending my deposit through the little chute thingy, I reached down to plug in my phone charger. Then, suddenly...he was there. ON MY LEG! (Thankfully, when I got dressed this morning, I knew that it wasn't going to hit 80 today so I wore long pants. I don't even want to think about what would have happened if I had worn shorts instead!) I did exactly what any other self respecting female would have done in that situation. I threw my phone on the floor, screamed bloody murder and pretty much had a spastic attack. The people in the car next to me were trying very hard not to laugh. I didn't think they quite understood the situation. You see, in my efforts to get the thing OFF OF ME, I didn't realize until it was too late, that I had missed the best opportunity I was going to get to kill it. Once, it was off my leg, it did what spiders do best...it hid.

Somewhere.

In my van.

By that time, the teller was finished with my transaction and I realized that I had to move the van. Which meant that I couldn't get out and run away as far as I could. I had to actually stay IN the van...with the spider. I prayed and drove to the car wash where I spent every last quarter I had on the vacuum, hoping, hoping, hoping that he'd show his eight legged self to me. No luck. At least the carpet got cleaned.

Out of quarters, I cautiously got back into the van and drove home. I had one last idea. He was waiting for me under the carport. "Oh, brave and mighty Ke-Kat," I pleaded "find the mean old spider." I lifted him gently and put him in the van - the same van that he clawed his way into the day that I left the windows down. Did he appreciate my help? No. He jumped right back out! Then he gave me a "I'm really only in the mood for lizards today" look and stretched.

I left all of the doors open for fifteen minutes in hopes that Mr. Spider would realize that escape was possible. If he did, I never saw him leave. Of course, he is kinda little so maybe he just slipped by. Eventually, with my very life on the line, I got back into the drivers seat and set back out on the road. The traffic was awful. The stores were noisy and crowded. The lines were long and slow. And because I got such a late start, I wasn't able to finish before returning home for the kids - which means that I'm going to have to do this all over again at some point this week.

Meanwhile, the spider is probably still in the van...just bidding his time.