Little Miss Muffett has Issues

Today involved a fairly important meeting at week. I have a suit jacket I wear for the important ones, and I thought today pretty much fit the bill.

So. I reach my fingers into the wardrobe, and for some reason grasped the sleeve instead of the coat-hanger. (It was early, and I hadn't had any coffee yet. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.)

My fingertips brushed against cloth and then encountered something strange.

I stopped.

I turned the sleeve over.

A flat black spider about the length of my fore-finger peered back up at me.

Me: ...

Spider: ?

Me: ...

Spider: ...

Me: Oh, you have GOT to be bloody kidding me!

Spider: *snigger*

I dropped the sleeve and bolted backwards, then watched the little bugger scuttle around the sleeve, peer out at me again - and then scuttle UP the arm of the suit.

And since it was getting late and I had to leave for my train, I leant forward, and told the quivering fabric that if it was still there when I got home, There Would Be Trouble, and It Would Involve The Suction Hose of Doom, also known as the Dyson that I can't really operate very well.

Then I had a train ride and most of the day to ponder the fact that I basically issued a death threat to a creature that probably isn't quite sure what all the fuss was about, and was having a nice cosy morning lie-in when it suddenly got felt up by a total stranger, and What The Hell?

I don't want to kill a spider for being a spider. Killing because we fear things is something humans do too fast and too easily, and it causes a great deal of utterly avoidable crap with ourselves and the rest of the planet.

Still, I had threatened, so I pretended to look for it in the wardrobe when I got home. I couldn't bring myself to touch the jacket.

There is webbing all over the side of the arm, and it was a pricey jacket that I can't replace easily.

I am arachnophobic to a fair degree - a couple of emergency room visits and hot tar bandages due to spider bites in S.A. gives me pretty fair basis for the phobia - and considering the size of said little bugger, I'm impressed that my reaction was more along the lines of WTF than hysterical screaming.

At some point I will need to get the jacket to the dry-cleaners, if I can bring myself to touch it again. 

In the meantime, unless the little arachnid of doom scuttles around in front of my nose on a day when I'm not feeling quite so live and let live, or dances over my pillow while I'm on it (there are limits, and that is definitely one of them), I'm going to pretend it escaped out of my window after I left the room, and is telling it's friends about the awful experience it had this morning.

I still say it sniggered at me, though.

Update: About 90 seconds after I'd posted this blog and climbed into bed, my carpet moved. A small section of it that looked remarkably like the spawn of Satan that has already trashed my suit sleeve charged over towards me. I made a noise like a very unhappy helium balloon, and had some trouble getting my feet to meet the floor this morning. I do believe I've just had war declared on me. Good intentions or not, I'm currently hunting bug bombs on Amazon.