Spidey sense

One reason why summer drools: bugs.

There I was, lying in bed and typing about how one must wade through the air because it is so humid outside when I caught something moving from the corner of my eye: it was a spider the size of my big toe, scuttling across the ceiling over my head.

I ran into the bathroom and got a wad of tissues, then leaped onto my bed and tried to grab it without leaving a splattering of bug guts. However, my hesitation in smushing the stupid thing gave it half a second to jump off the ceiling and onto my bed, thus causing me to jump off my bed and go crashing to the floor with a squeal. How girly. Jainists, I'm sorry, I squashed it without mercy after that.

The spider run-in reminded me of a dumb story, though . . . flash back to Meghan in the first grade. Chapter books were my crack addiction, and as such, I had these preconceived notions about what everything was supposed to be like according to these stereotypical children's books: the nurse's office always had a scary stigma to it, new babies always stole the spotlight from their older siblings, and classrooms always had class pets.

To my dismay, Mr. Hommel did not have a pet in his first grade classroom. It became my sole mission that year to find a pet for our class, and adoptees ranged from a small plastic dolphin floating in a soda bottle filled with water to a tadpole from the pond near the primary school. After the dolphin and before the tadpole, though, I found a spider and put it in a fish tank with twigs and torn-up grass. Sadly, one of the girls in my class let it escape one day. Tool.

It seriously amazes me that I was able to retain friends throughout grade school.