I had a girlfriend once who had three tarantula spiders
for pets.
Her spiders creeped me out, but she was so beautiful
and sweet
that in spite of how weird it was to me that she had
spiders as pets,
I just couldn’t leave her, and I was with her until she
started acting crazy and accused me of seeing
other women behind her back no matter how many
times I told her I wouldn’t do that to her.
And she began talking and cooing to those goddamn
spiders as if they were her babies.
So one day, exasperated with her, I said screw it
and told her we were through.
She went crazy, called me a cheating piece of shit,
and kept trying to hit me as I backed away from her
until I got to her front door and dashed out of it and
jumped in my car and sped away.
Mercifully, I didn’t hear from her after that, though
I thought for sure she’d stalk me.
But a month later when I went to bed I felt something
bite me just as I got under the sheet,
a black widow spider that I killed with a shoe, but after
that I had trouble breathing and my body was shaking,
and I had to go to the hospital ER to get treatment,
a shot of a drug called antivenin and was monitored
by a doctor for twelve days to make sure I didn’t get
any severe side effects from the drug.
I can’t prove that my spider-loving ex girlfriend put
that black widow spider in my bed, but I’m sure
somehow she did, and now I carefully check my bed
every night before I get in it and hope she is
satisfied that her black widow revenge was enough
to insanely get even with me.
Bob Boyd