The other night, as usual, I was getting dinner ready.  I had already added the grapes to a salad Joel and I were having but I still needed to cut some up for the boys.  As I picked a new group of grapes, I noticed that there was something whitish near the vine.  I tried to get it out with one pair of scissors but those were too dull, so I set the grapes down on the counter and reached for another pair of scissors.  I then picked up the grapes.  There, on the counter where the grapes had been was a hairy little SPIDER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I shrieked like someone was trying to kill me.  ”SPIDER” I shouted.  Joel and the boys were sitting on the couch at the time, looking at a book or his phone, I’m not sure which one.  Their heads popped up when I started screaming.  Dexter ran over to look at the spider.  Joel wasn’t really reacting.  I shouted  ”IT’S A BABY TARANTULA and IT’S MOVING!!!!!”  Joel yelled back “then kill it.”  I looked at him with a “Are you kidding me?” look on my face and then gave my best war yell, which sounded more like a horror flick scream and slammed a napkin down on a very sluggishly moving hairy spider, and jumped about 3 inches into the air.  I carefully pulled the napkin off the counter, expecting the spider to lunge at me.  It was squished.  I poked at it, waiting for it to move again and just decided I had better give it a really good squish.  Into the garbage it went.  Visions of the movie Arachnophobia entered my head.  Joel kindly took out the garbage.  I had a really hard time getting the boys grapes for the meal.  I must have looked at every inch of the grape vine, looking for other spiders.  Then I spent a good 20 minutes on the internet looking for spiders in grapes to see if it really was a baby tarantula.

The next day, I asked the boys what fruit I should eat for lunch.  They said grapes.  I swear, I must have post traumatic stress syndrome because it was seriously hard to eat more grapes.  I was incredibly jumpy after that.

(this might be a sign that we’ll have to meet you in New Zealand, Laura.  Not sure Katie can handle Australia…)