Ok, yes, she dies before the end of the novel anyway, but my point is I hate spiders.

I wasn’t always this way. There was a time when I was a curious child gleefully capturing arachnids in the name of scientific inquiry. I’m not entirely sure when my image of spiders transformed from marvels of nature to the most terrifying creatures on the face of the earth. Although . . . there was that time when I was still quite young that my sister snuck up behind me and threw ants in my hair. She told me that I was covered with deadly poisonous spiders possessing venom so lethal that a single bite would kill me instantly. I violently shook the insects from my hair, screaming and hyperventilating, certain of impending death. I was insane with panic and utterly inconsolable.

That could have done it.

This paralyzing fear, coupled with an allergy to spider bites, has forced me to become The Reluctant Spider Slayer. If I were a stronger person, the spiders and I could live together in peace. Unharmed, they would continue to run around my shower, hide in my bathrobe, and attempt to descend onto my head while I brush my hair. The bathroom would remain their haven, and I would allow them to cavort about happily as spiders are wont to do. They would enjoy racing up and down the mirror, and I would endure it safe in the knowledge that they would no longer nibble me into grotesque deformity.

However, every time God blows the breath of Life into a speck of dust, animating it with eight legs, a bulbous butt, and more eyes than I care to know about, primal fear takes over and I smash that sucker flat. How I have been lectured for my cruelty! “They’re more afraid of you than you are of them,” I’ve been told.

Clearly these people have never seen me ambush a somewhat spider-like bit of lint with a plunger and a can of Raid (because my eyesight isn’t spectacular and you can never be too careful).

But whether I wage war on an actual arachnid or a piece of sweater lint doing a very good spider impression (lint is more resilient to attack, but moves more slowly than real spiders), I do feel an overwhelming sense of guilt for eradicating the creature from my living area.

Which is why I just had the Captain smoosh one for me.