I am being tortured in my own home. For some reason, and this is a life long stand off, the spider family hold a deeply rooted vendetta against me. It looks like word finally followed me to the fluffy green shores of Americae that a constant attack should be launched. They are smarter than me, I can admit that. A man needs to know when he is dealing with his betters. But they could be a little more classy about their assaults. They only strike when I am at my weakest, i.e eating cereal in my underwear in bed watching that real estate infomercial where that short guy in glasses touts his "get rich off houses secrets" to a tall italian guy with greasy hair.

The most recent attack had me jumping out of bed to then trip over my laundry bag. They pulled the old one-two approach. On the wall behind my headboard, just inches from me , INCHES FROM ME, one of them slowly showed off his six extra legs by walking at a diagonal angle toward my head. He was the decoy. With my antelope like reflexes in action i sprung to my left only to see, the second infiltrator. BIGGER, MUCH BIGGER than his friend, this guy had abseiled all the way from the ceiling and was about to land right on my grey cloth covered hip!!! Of course its never like the movies. Instead of strapping on a bandana and jumping into action, I screamed in a note i didint even know i had and tumbled off the bed. I could hear the other spiders over their radios all cackling with laughter and grabbing their bristly sides. How cheap. later, draped in a sheet and weeping into a bottle of ameretto I vowed to be rid of them. I always do. I find them way more scary than roches. Roches have attitude. I dont mind them. They go about their business, hailing taxies in chinatown or what not.

Spiders are just out to cause trouble. It was not always like this however. There is a beginning to this story of Tom and the spiders. This following is true. I used to be best friends with spiders. When I was 0-4 yrs old i loved them. We would hang out. I found them ticklish and pleasant. The ones with the small bodies and huge legs were my faves. I called them "dissolving spiders". I don't know why. So one day I was outside running around at my usual high jinks like digging moats in sand and then covering them with water, until I found my way over to an old blue metallic pugeot that was up on blocks behind the house. This thing was so cool. It was straight from an elvis movie. It had these pointy tail-lights that made it look like a spaceship! So for some reason i decided to go hang out underneath the car. Every word of this is true by the way. Its sounds like the beginning of a super heroes life, or cat woman's anyway. I was under the car looking at it when out of nowhere all these spiders started crawling on me. I guess i had knocked open a nest or something. And it wasnt just one kind of spider. It was like freakin Woodstock! I didn't know to be scared. I thought this was great fun. They were tickling me and I thought that was cool, until I rolled out from under the car and stood up. There were thousands of these guys running all over me so I called my sister or my mother to come see. I don't remember who came over, but thats when it got bad. All I remember was this contorted horrified face, and a blood curdling scream! Terrified by the noise, and with the learning mind of a three year old, I slowly looked down at my outfit of arachnids in a new light and howled like i never had before. It all went dark after that. I think I fell unconscious from screaming!!!!

This is a lesson in conditioning. Since then, to be in the same room as a spider makes me want t go live on the moon. They'd probably get me there too though. They're probably watching right now. Waiting. Waiting...

Next week I talk about how to wash a kitchen floor, guy style, with an old t-shirt and some dish soap.