Michelle Leland…this narrative is for you.

So I’m doing my “night before surgery” shower thing, where they make you wash with the medical equivalent to battery acid, see, making it clear to not get it in any orifices lest you go blind or deaf or sterile; you are also not to use conditioner (criminal!), and during this debacle I’m wondering what the Purpose of It All is, when I just have to do it *again* in the morning. (sigh.) yes, that’s right.  They make you do it twice.  Which is altogether pointless when all I’m going to do is crawl into my bed littered with dead skin cells and the cracker crumbs and pieces of seaweed from last night and other evidence of humanity you *really* don’t want to know about, thus negating all of this “disinfecting”.

At any rate, mid-scrub, I look up, and there’s a spider on the ceiling. Not a “bite-your-face-off” sized one mind you, but modest, reddish, just hanging out, trying to build a web, I think, flush with the ceiling. Considering I’ve never seen a flying insect in the bathroom to date, I feel this is a bad plan. I find it best to advise him:

“Hey.  Dude-man.  That’s a bad spot for your real estate.  Seriously. Keep it movin’.”

The spider does not respond.

“Ok, now, I’m no expert, but seriously.”

Nothing.

And then…it warbles. Legs dangling, et cetera.

“Oh, HELL no…ok, pal, you fall on me, that’s it. No sympathy. None. I was willing to let you build your digs over a swirling vortex of death all you wanted but you fall on me? You’re fucked.”

It is at this point I begin to realize the surgical disinfectant I have lathered onto my porcelain flesh has exceeded the 15-20 second expiration date and is now searing my epidermis.

“%$&#*^%!!!”

Warble…

I then decide a pre-emptive strike is in order and go after the unsteady arachnid with my sadly unused bottle of conditioner.

I miss.
It falls. Onto my disinfected shoulder.

There’s a certain clarity of thought, a particular calmness that claims your mind, when you realize that in less than 24 hours a surgeon is going to be reaching into your opened abdomen and removing all of your reproductive organs. This tends to keep you from the predictable human response of:

“AAAAAGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!”

And instead, you shoot it a sarcastic look which reads, “Sumbitch pleeeeease…” and with a nonchalant “flick” send him flying into the drain, Honey Badger-style. Sorry dude-man.

He hits the bottom of the tub unimpressively, legs flailing, and spirals down into the aforementioned Vortex of Death. He died so that others may shower.

Now, if tomorrow morning during pre-op disinfectant shower round two there’s a damn coconut crab in there, you’ll bet your ass there will be the vocal equivalent of a four-alarm fire emanating from the bathroom. There’s a time and a place and there’s just no amount of disinfecting cleanser that can help me recover from that nightmare.