Portrait of a Thursday Night

I walked into the bathroom to get ready for bed. While not late, I am of the wussy variety and need at least eight hours of sleep per night, so it was late enough. I went to the sink and washed my hands, and then, when I was reaching for the toothbrush, I looked up, and horror of horrors! A semi-large, extremely creepy black spider, crawling on the ceiling. “Eww, fuck,” I said, and then walked out of the bathroom and into the bedroom.

“Baby,” I said softly, “are you awake?”

“Yeah, what’s wrong?”

“There’s a spider on the bathroom ceiling, and it’s big.” And he gets up, out of the warm bed, to be my spider killer.

“Where is it?” He asks when he gets into the bathroom.

“On the ceiling, over the sink.”

He didn’t see the creepy crawler at first, because it had moved down onto the light fixture, but then he saw it, and it was soon dead.

“Thank you, sweetie.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, as he starts to walk away. I go back into the bathroom to brush my teeth, and look up. “Fuck! J? Are you still right there?”

He comes back in.

“There’s another one just like that one, hanging from the ceiling next to the medicine cabinet.”

And for the second time in about as many minutes, he kills a spider for me.

“That one never saw it coming,” he says, and then he goes back to bed.

I walk back into the bathroom and brush my teeth and hair, watching the ceiling and walls in paranoia the whole time.

Stupid fucking spiders. Why do they love to torment me? And why the hell are they drawn to my bathroom? Yuck.

I shut off all the lights and walk into the bedroom, with Bernie ambling along beside me. I get into bed, set my alarm, and lay down to sleep. And to avoid nightmares about big, black spiders all over me, I start to think of the Sims. Imagine how cool it would be if I could be a Sim - spiders don't exist in the Sims. I could walk through the Finch brothers' house, and go home to the house I share with Sim J, and he would never have to kill spiders for me. I like that house, with its nice big kitchen, and living room, and....

And I sleep. And I don't dream about spiders at all. Thank goodness.