Tammy's Karma

Some of the 5.3 people that actually read this page might remember the story of Timmy the spider. For those of you that don't remember, Timmy expired while building a web in our living room, at a place where I couldn't reach. Timmy has remained (albeit demised) in residence there ever since.

Timmy's sibling Tammy recently took up residence in the bathroom. She decided to build a web near the shower enclosure. Now, our shower has an open top, and the web was more or less right over the top of the shower door. I noticed her one day after I had finished washing my hair. She was going about her spiderly business, and generally not being very menacing.

Of course, my immediate thought was that she would wait till I had soap in my eyes, and then spring upon me and try to devour me. Realize, she was no bigger than the nail of my pinkie finger. Still, I was sure that she had nothing but malice for me, and would attack me the moment I turned my back on her.

So after I got out of the shower, I decided to rid myself of the terror of the shower stall. I got out Alicia's hair spray, intending to imprison my foe in a case of crystalline acrylic resin. The bottle was a pump style bottle. It took me several minutes of pumping before the bottle started to work. All this time, my conscience was nagging me. "That spider poses no threat to you. Why kill it?"

"What if it's a dangerous species? Remember what happened to Jennifer," I countered.

"Tammy is a common house spider and you are a paranoid fool," chided my little voice.

"Oh, shut up."

I often tell my little voice to shut up. This isn't really smart, but a conscience can be such a burden at times. I must have sprayed half a bottle of hair spray on Tammy by this time. She struggled, and tried to escape, but it was to no avail. Soon afterwards, she started sticking to her own web. Needless to say, I felt terrible.

The next day, as I was taking my shower, I noticed that Tammy was still alive. Horror of horrors! I had felt bad the day before, and I felt even worse now. So I got out and dried off, fearful the whole time of a wrathful Tammy leaping upon me form her perch. I sprayed her again, hoping that another coat would finish the job.

I repeated this little ritual of bad karma for two more days. It was terrible, but because I was sure that Tammy would bite me if I put my hand anywhere near her, I wasn't going to try to catch her or squish her with a newspaper.

Tammy was half paralyzed, but she continued struggling to maintain her web. She was probably pretty confused as to why only four of her eight legs were working. Finally, I couldn't stand it anymore, and decided that was going to have to risk getting bitten in order to end her misery. So I got a subscription card from one of the magazines in the bathroom, reached up, and squished her.

Almost squished her, I should say. As I moved my hand away, I saw that I had missed somewhat and now Tammy was moving away on two of her good legs and two of her bad legs, with the remainder of the eight being deposited on the card I was attempting to squish her with. I went in for another try, and mercifully struck home. Tammy's reign of terror above the shower stall was ended, and I could go back to washing my hair with my eyes closed.

The next day, I stubbed my toe, and then hit my head getting out of the shower.

I guess Tammy got me after all.