Carrot teeth and bulging eyes of death... Spider of the Apocalypse, redux

Dear Gentle Reader,

A face like this is just another reason why these guys give your humble scribe the creeps.

I mean, look at those teeth...

This guy is like a monster drawn by a three-year old child with carrot teeth and bulgy eyes.

(Note, I am referring to the drawn monster as having the carrot teeth and bulgy eyes.)

(Further note, were the three-year old child to have carrot teeth and bulgy eyes, and be drawing a picture of the same, your humble scribe would be afraid of the three-year old child, too...)

The above-pictured beast is decidedly real, although he also inhabits my nightmares...

Come on, Harry...

Smile for the camera...

If Little Red Riding Hood had described this guy, instead of the the wolf, I really don't know how I would have made it through childhood, especially the nights.

Heck, even the frogs are hiding from this guy in the daytime...

So, mental imagery time...

It's hot.

Really hot.

And humid.

Really humid.

You go to bed au naturel because it's so hot and humid.

Feral noises come from the jungle outside your building, until silence coccoons you in the tight embrace of sleep.

And then you wake in the middle of the night.

You wake in a panic, but, also,

and wisely,

you wake, frozen in place...

For Something is upon you...

And, by the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes...

That Something is moving...

That Something is heavy...

That Something is the size of a plate...

...and on your chest...

And,

and here I save the best for last...

that Something has no body heat...

although you know It moves quite fast

by Its quick, twitching, spiky feet...

It's as if fluid night has coagulated into prickly substance.

A lethal bit of dark matter has congealed and been extruded from the night and dripped upon your body, discernible only by the pressure it exerts on your ever tightening psyche and skin...

...It is another spider of the apocalypse.

My questions to you are:

Do you open your eyes to see impending doom... and show the spider of the apocalypse where you keep the wet, juicy morsels to quench its thirst?

Do you move at all?

Do you hope it goes sideways? (Rather than towards your head, or towards a warm site further south...)

Do you let your partner know now, or later?

I remember these questions flitting across my fevered brain through the horror of one sweat-drenched night.

Spiders of the apocalypse; one of the lesser joys of Taiwan.

Thank goodness this Cambodian cousin didn't know the standard operating procedure for his ilk.

And, hopefully, nothing snuck into my luggage...

Tschuess,

Chris, Regina, a wide-eyed Pommes who used to like hiding under the furniture, and a visiting Dad who doesn't know that those spiders I showed you last year are fattening up, as I write, as they prepare for this year's inspection tour, and a possible sacrificial offering...