Prelude: My seven year old girl is being partially raised by two older brothers, just like MILK. There are benefits to this to be sure… enforcement and protection in the school years, for example. This girl is aggressive and fearless in sports to the point of yellow cards (and on the playground), and she has one curious fascination: “Nakes and piders”

Yes, my little princess is obsessed with the creatures from many adults’ nightmares. Like a lot of kids, she also has weird issues with the sound of the letter s. Therefore her two favorite animals, snakes and spiders, are ‘nakes and piders”.

Side note: she’s also been know to complaint that hot tubs are too “teamy”, but I’ve been in some pretty teamy hot tubs when I was young and reckless, and it’s totally worth it.

She watches YouTube videos about jumping spiders and Snake Discovery is such a hit with her that she’s trying to convince me to drive four days to see Rex the alligator. But here’s the catch; she may love ‘piders, but she’s also secretly terrified of them. Sort of like any good relationship on TV.

So miss brave little thing will talk a big game about how awesome jumping spiders are and how cute they are all day, then comes the time when there is one in the real universe.

“Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaddddd,” came the shriek. There is a “not on YouTube” jumping spider in the bathroom on the ceiling. She is ensconced below in a bubble bath worthy of a Go-Go’s album. “PIIIIIIIIIIIDERRRR!!”

I can relate, kid.

Now when I was her age, I was not afraid of spiders. We lived in the woods and basically that meant we shared our house with god knows how many of the eight legged monstrosities and they were tiny free pets as far as I was concerned. I remember sitting on the toilet as a kid handling one of the daddy long legs that walked around our bathroom. The only spiders that were kill on sight or get dad were the black widows of which we had plenty. City kids will never know the joy of fetching firewood off the stack on the side of the house at night with an unreliable flash light (if you were lucky) knowing how many widows lived in there that you saw during the day. At night I was sure they multiplied and tripled in size and aggression.

This all changed thanks to our mom. For some reason when you move out of the woods and into the city spiders become the rabid mountain lions of apartments. Our mom changed from “oh look a spider, I’ll get a tissue and throw it outside” to “OMG kids a spider!!! Run for your lives and call U-Haul because we are going to have to burn this place to the ground, its the only way to be sure. Milk, grab the cat if you can but remember its just a cat.” Just kidding my mom would never abandon a cat to Shelob. (Giant spider from Lord of the Rings for the less nerdy)

This was partly because we didn’t have the internet back then so we had to make our own fun when all that was on broadcast TV was ALF. Mom loves a good panic.

Back to the pider. So I walk in to a little girl with huge eyes pointing desperately to a spider the size of a tic tac wandering across the ceiling. I’m going over to show her there’s nothing to fear and to let it go outside, when it jumps. Into the bath.

Ever seen Piranha, the movie? No underpaid coked-out 80’s model/actress ever reacted this way to swarms of flesh ripping tiny fish in a hot tub. I swear she levitated and did two laps around the bathroom running on the walls like she was in a gravitron at the county fair run by a carnie who didn’t enforce any safety rules. So… any gravitron. Then she hid behind me, soaking wet and pointing at the pider with one shaking finger, using her other hand to dig her nails into my arm. Our cat looked on, impressed with a performance only the sound of steam from the pressure cooker can justify in her feline brain

I reached into the water and grabbed the wet arachnid and walked to the back door and tossed it out.

“Is he going to be okay?” My daughter yelled from the bathtub, “because I named him Tortilla and he’s my favorite!”

Turns out my daughter has a bit of my mom in her and loves some good panic.