Deja Vu

Yesterday morning, Ben yelled “Get a paper towel!” I immediately knew what was up. I grabbed a paper towel and skidded across the floor where he waited, poised and ready to strike. Or so I thought. I should have known better.

I thrust the paper towel in his hand and narrowed my eyes at the spider that treaded across the wall, inches from the pillow on the bed. I encouraged Ben with a high school cheer. I built up his confidence and waited for him to bravely squash that spider. I waited for him to make me proud, restore the confidence lost the last time we encountered a bug in the apartment.

He eyed the spider (timidly) and struck. He reeled back with a triumphant smile and held the squished paper towel out to me. I shook my head.

Ben wheeled back around and we watched the spider trot away behind my side of the bed.

“I thought I had it,” he said (rather unconvincingly).

“You were five inches to the right of it,” I said.

“Oh. I really thought I had it.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Now it’ll crawl into our clothes chest and have babies. We’ll probably swallow it tonight when sleeping…” I continued, scaring Ben into action for the next time. “Actually, it will probably bite our face and lay eggs under our skin where baby spiders will burst out of our skin when hit by a ball.” It happened to a kid in our high school, so my prediction was not totally unfounded. And, he knew it.

“Oh, man. I should have tried harder,” Ben said. Unfortunately, the waver in his voice and the twitching corners of his mouth told me otherwise.