Of Students and Spiders

Three of my piano students (two fifth graders and a third grader) walk to my house directly from school.  They have learned that they always go directly to the bathroom and wash hands before touching the piano.  

Today, one of my students came out and informed me that there was a spider in our bathroom. I wondered why they didn't just kill it, but walked to the bathroom to investigate.  Upon entering the bathroom, my student also informed me that the spider was in the air register.  I looked down the vent and sure enough, there was a spider.  It was BIG!  I hate spiders, especially BIG spiders.

Now, my student was telling me that I should just pick up the register cover.  She even volunteered to do it herself.  But, after seeing this thing, I decided to go after some spray.  

I don't have any sort of bug killing spray in my house.  The best I could do was Windex.  I proceeded back to the bathroom (which is rather small) with three girls close behind.  To see the register the bathroom door must be closed.  I sprayed the register and out ran the spider - straight at us.

You have to picture this:  Four of us "trapped" in a small  bathroom with the door shut and  a large spider coming at us.  The four of us screamed.  Two of the three girls jumped onto the toilet and one onto the side of the tub.  They were yelling, "Kill it!"  I looked around for something to squish this enormous spider and the only thing I could think of (quickly) was the Windex bottle in my hand.  As I'm raising the bottle to go for the kill, the girls are screaming, "Oh, gross, not the Windex bottle!"  With every strike they groaned and screamed.

I stopped to look at this monster and try to identify exactly what kind of spider it was.  It was a brown recluse!  Ok, I'm a teacher....so, I took this moment to educate my students.  I  coaxed them from their perches on the toilet and tub to come and see the violin shape on the back of the spider.  The four of us were gathered around this withered spider when one leg started moving, then another.  More screams and they're back to their perches!  This spider, who looked dead a moment ago was coming at us again!  I went back to the Windex bottle.  I sprayed again first and then squished and with each squish again came the groans and screams of my students mixed with my own screams! 

I cleaned up the carcass with about 7 squares of Bounty (you can't be too safe) and took it outside to throw it in the trash.  I certainly didn't want it to come to life again and find it's way out of my trash inside!