I walked into my room at the guest house to find a BIG spider right beside my bed on the wall. I knew my debilitating fear of spiders would need to be overcome while I stay in Africa. So I was determined to handle this situation without opting to call a friend or the dude that runs the guest house.
I wanted to handle this myself. So I thought I’d play it safe and do a little research. I had no internet, but I did remember to bring a copy of the health book, Lonely Planet, Healthy Travel, Africa. So I decided to skim it and came across this wonderful passage under Spiders on page 355.
“If you come from a temperate climate where spiders are horrid rather than life threatening, it may come as a nasty shock that not only some spiders bite, they can also be lethal. However, you should remember that although most spiders are venomous, only a few have powerful enough jaws to penetrate human skin and cause you harm.”
So now, I have a fast moving big spider to deal with. That has jaws and is potentially lethal. (At least in my mind).
I go look around for what I can rid my room of the spider. I have flip-flops but that would require me getting close to the thing. My bug repellent spray is pump action and would need me to get within a few inches of it… only to annoy it and make it move around. My shoe and leg combo wouldn’t work because I was too slow for the thing. There was Joanne, but her decision was to throw my left flip-flop at it and almost make it disappear under the bed.
I figured it out. I took one of the curtain poles from the small window. Why grab the small pole? I wanted to salvage what little pride I have and not pull the curtain from the big window exposing this fiasco.
So I gave it one whack. It dodged and started running around the wall. If there’s one thing I hate more than big spiders, it’s fast ones. I kept trying and it kept dodging me. Now I stood there curtain pole in hand and eyes fixed on this humungous guy. I stood there for a good 10 minutes just starring it down for intimidation.
Finally in a two quick blows I was able to rid my room of this spider.
Success. I am a warrior.
