My husband Tom and I used to live near Carmack, Mississippi, on Highway 35.  My daughter Ariana was only three years old.  The house we were renting was roomy.  It was an older home, and since it was in the country, it had its share of spiders.

     When it comes to spiders, I have 20/20 vision.  If a spider crawls within 20 feet of my field of vision, I hit the door at 20 miles per hour.  It's a relationship that worked well . . . until one night when I had an encounter with a particularly aggressive breed.

     Ariana was sleepy-eyed and ready for bed.  The bedroom was warm and dark.  All I had to illuminate the place was a nightlight that was plugged into one of the wall sockets.  She was freshly bathed and dressed in her soft, pink pajamas with built-in feet.  The child looked like a little doll.  She sat next to me on the bed, intent on lying quietly beside her mommy and going sleepy-bye.  She was the picture of angelic serenity . . . until she saw the spider.

     I sat up abruptly to the shrill screams of my little three-year-old.  These were not ordinary screams.  These were the kind of screams that made straight hair suddenly go all kinky, the kind that made even the hair on my toes stand on end.  (Gross, huh?)

     "What's wrong?!" I yelled, only succeeding in adding to the noise.

     Ariana pointed to a large, hairy spot on the blanket in front of me.  I impulsively threw back the cover to get the spider off of me.  Instead, it jumped and landed on my leg.  Now it was MY turn to scream!

     Ariana wasn't taking any chances.  She snatched her tennis shoe from the headboard and crouched on the bed, poised like a two-and-a-half-foot-high ninja.  My sweet, innocent, pajama-clad baby was going to crush the little beast into oblivion if it came anywhere NEAR her!

     Meanwhile, I tried hard to avoid the uninvited guest.  I thrashed the blanket left, right, up, and down, trying to shake off the hairy little monster.  Unfortunately, even in the half-light of the room, I could see that this was a VERY aggressive spider!  Everytime I tossed the blanket around, it would jump like an eight-legged flea and land somewhere on my body.  First my leg, then my knee, then my arm . . .  I screamed like Freddy Creuger was leering at me from the window!

     Suddenly, the bedroom door opened and my husband threw on the light switch.

     "What's all the screaming about?" he wanted to know.

     Well, duh!  Didn't he have a clue that Carmack, Mississippi, was about to be invaded by aggressive, hairy, jumping spiders?

     "The spider!" I yelled, pointing to my knee.

     "What spider?" he asked, completely oblivious to the imminent danger that Ariana and I were in .

     "That one!"

     I pointed to my knee, which had prematurely locked up with arthritis, and saw only a piece of fluff attached to a thin fiber hanging off the edge of the blanket.

     My mouth dropped open in embarrassment and relief.  Ariana saw it and started laughing.  So did I, so hard that it became difficult to breathe.

     I still have 20/20 vision when it comes to spiders, but now I don't run until I see the whites of all eight of its eyes!