When Grand Daddy Longlegs go bad.

Terror on the beltline

Kayaking clothes kept outside frequently have to be cleared of bugs. I have done battle with ants while paddling down the river and delayed a trip for an hour while evicting stink bugs from a Lifejacket. So I didn’t think anything about a lone Grand Daddy Longlegs on top of the paddle bags. I remember seeing it when packing and thinking that I need to find it a new home before it gets into the car. I forgot.

I was mystified when my wife shrieked, no, SSSHHHRIEKED! when we had just merged onto the center lane of the busy inner beltline around Raleigh. At first I thought she was back seat driving again and I quickly scanned for some danger I might have missed, like a hockey mask wearing chainsaw wielding guy on the hood. Unable to speak from shrieking, she pointed and varied the types of shrieks as if AAAAH EEEE AAAAA had some kind of syntax. That’s when I saw the forgotten Grand Daddy Longlegs sitting on the dash in the corner where the window and the frame connect … right in front of the passenger seat. He was unaware of the chaos he was causing and the impending doom that it meant. I was not seeing an exit with ease of access back on the road and having no real shoulder to escape to, so I was hoping that some sort of detente could be reached between them until I could find a spot to pull over. To show that the situation might not be so bad, I started chuckling. My Wife was not falling for it. Perhaps she couldn't hear me over the continued shrieking.

Then the spider moved. He was just following the edge of the window down the side of the car. You know, taking a stroll in that wobbly way Longlegs do. To my Wife he was lunging at her. Her shoe came off and smacked the side of the car missing the spider but causing him to retreat to the corner where the shoe couldn't reach. More shrieking. Laughing in earnest. I was laughing at the helplessness of the situation. She couldn't kill or get rid of the Grand Daddy Longlegs. I couldn't get the car off the road or persuade her that this was not a big threat. And the spider couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. That’s when I really started laughing.

So have you ever laughed so hard that it could be mistaken for anaphylactic shock? No real sound comes out and the eyes swell up. So that’s where we were, her facing down a menace, and me trying to drive in Raleigh traffic unable to see or speak. Of course the added helplessness made it even funnier. Now see, this is why I will look into the cars around me when I drive by. Sooner or later I will get to witness a drama like this playing out and wonder WTH.

Somewhere while trying to cope with the center lane of the Raleigh beltline driving with only peeks of the road every 2-3 seconds the spider crawled out just far enough for my wife to dispatch him with her shoe. It took me about 10-20min ‘till I could talk about the “terror of the dash” without tearing up in laughter immediately. The rest of the trip passed bug free, well, almost.