RaePhrasing: The Transport

As I was getting into my vehicle on Saturday morning, a dark black blurry spot in middle of windshield caught my attention. My eye focuses on a massive, ornate, thin web spanning the length of my dashboard and a large black spider perched in the middle. In a heartbeat, I am out of the car, running and jumping down the walkway back to my apartment shaking off the feeling of spiders in my hair, on my arms, on my legs.... AAAAAAAA…. I am freaking out. How in the world did a spider get into my car?

Naturally, I summoned my husband from his slumber to exterminate the unwanted passenger. Begrudgingly and painfully slow, he shuffled back down the walkway with me and took a paper towel to the spider. I breathe. Okay, its over…Whatever, right? I zoom zoom to the gym.

After my workout, I head back to my car in the carport. Beep Beep. Click. I toss in my bag in the truck and click close. The spider from this morning was a distant memory. I zoom zoom to the exit, hand the cashier my exit ticket, exchange a few pleasantries, and zoom zoom to the freeway. No problem.

As I am waiting at the signal for the freeway on-ramp, a small shadow moving from my backseat to my front seat suddenly caught the corner of my eye. I look over at my black leather passenger seat. Nothing.

I start to turning left, the shadow moves again. I look over. Nothing.

I keep driving and glancing, driving and glancing, driving and glancing as the shadow appears again in and out of corner of my eye along the passenger floor board. What the heck is that? Finally, it registers in my brain that the shadow is not a shadow as it leaps up from the floor board onto the passenger seat.

IT’S A CRICKET!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I scream. The car swerves. AAAAAAH! I get a hold of myself enough to pull over the side of the highway.

Breathe. Breathe. So there I am, on the side of the road, screaming and leaping around the car like a Aztec calling for rain. How in the name of heaven, I am going to get a CRICKET to jump out of my car?!?!?!?! I opened the passenger door. Jump out, little Jiminy. Jump out, please. He jumps but not out, and I commence jitterbug dance outside my car again….

After some time passed and no sign that Jiminy Cricket planned to leap out of my car, I called my husband who lovingly, flat-out refused to come save me. His exact words included something along the lines of “man-up” and “kill it.”

Since none of his encouragement motivated me to take care of the problem myself, I stood on the side of the road in my gym clothes and flagged down a nice old man. “I have a cricket in my car!!!!” I yelled over the din of traffic.

“A what?” he yelled back. “A CRICKET!”

“A WHAT?”

“A C-R-I-C-K-E-T!!!”

“A Creek?

“NO. A CRICKET CRICKET CRICKET!”

I finally motioned for him to come see…I can’t be sure but I think he was expecting me to have a real car problem, because he gave me this look of pure bewilderment as the word “cricket” made sense.

He set to work coaching it out the door, and I sat back wondering how a cricket and a spider ended up in my BMW. I leaned on the passenger door and stared blankly into the back seat. The culprit!

“THE BOX!” I gasped and screamed. The nice old man was startled. “THE BOX!!!!!” I scream again. I was moving a box from my critter-infested old office to my new office and had accidentally left it in my car Friday night.

This story ends with me at the car wash asking the guys disinfect my car and to vacuum with an eye out for more critters. As it turns out, I was transporting two more crickets and three spiders. This transport could have ended very very badly.