Let's talk about the spider.

Last night, my sister and brother in law were over and the X-Man pointed out a large spider in our kitchen, which he called a "roach." In our house, "roach" loosely translates to "Big Crawly Thing I Want Dead." They were briefly known as "pansies", when O. heard me call his father a pansy for refusing to kill a roach. In all the excitement, he got confused and thought I was yelling at the roach. Kids are easily confused. Obviously, his father is the pansy.

So, the X-Man screams, "ROACH!" I scream, "ALEX! ROACH! ROOOOOAAAAACH!" And my husband sits, paralyzed in a chair, way on the other side of the room. Pansy.

Then I looked at the roach and learned that, in fact, it was a very large spider. Or a small dog with a bunch of legs. Whatever. While I don't want to snuggle with one, I don't mind spiders. They eat mosquitoes and I respect that. I changed my demand from "KIIIILL IIIIIIT!" to "PUT IT OUTSIIIIDE!"

My brother in law, who I thought was man enough to pick up a cute(ish), little furry spider and place it safely outside informed me that he would do no such thing and planned to stomp on it. I sure wasn't going to touch it, so I weighed my options and quickly endorsed the stomping. Sorry. My dear brother in law employed a technique I like to call the "Taser Stomp." When a bug is so large that a sloppy stomp would result in copious amounts of vile splatter, which would require a new coat of paint, you stomp it and pull back at the same time - kind of like putting English on the cue ball so you don't scratch.

What happened next I will never forget. The spider burst into fifty little spiders. My brother in law is a spider midwife. I'd like to say we carefully shepherded all the little spiders out into the world safely, but guess what? We didn't. I screamed.

"SH*T!"

In front of my kids. I've never done that before. Surprised? I'm actually pretty uptight. I didn't have time to guage their reactions, though. My brother in law and I were too busy smashing spiders and yelling, "EW! EWWW! EW!" After we accomplished our mission, I looked at O, who was looking straight at me with the smug look of a ten year old who has something on one of his parents. Oh well, it had to happen sooner or later. At least my emotions were real.

My brother in law was so disgusted he had to remove his shoes and put them outside. I had to assure him I had moved them a safe distance from the house, because he was scared they harbored wily baby spiders who would enter the house to exact revenge. He wanted to take a bath, but we made fun of him until he stopped asking. All in all, this was a very nice experience for my husband. Now he knows that, just like him, my brother in law screams like a girl.

Namasté, y'all!