Surprise!

Here is a spider:

And let me tell you how this spider ended up at my house, in a plastic bucket with a saran-wrap lid.

First, I was at a baseball game (which really isn't an important factor, but fun nonetheless, especially because Noah made a home run, and an excellent catch). Then I rode home with my mother in my brother's car. We couldn't take the rest of the kids because the car was full of Ben's fix-it and build-it gear and other miscellaneous junk that accumulates in the cars of the American Youth.

On our way home we stopped to buy some plants (another non-important though interesting fact). We crammed the plants between the build-it and fix-it gear and on top of the junk. Then we headed towards the freeway and just as we were turning onto it I saw our friend from Image no. 1 come crawling out onto the dashboard with some business in mind. In my panicked mind I believed that I was its business, since it crittered right over to me, as though it had something important to discuss.

Naturally I pushed back into my seat as far as I could and started jabbering, "Mom! Mom! Mom, there's a spider. Spider! Spider! Mom, there's a spider." and I started into some hysterical laughter.

She looked over from the driver's seat. "Where? Oh! Oh! Spider! Spider!" Instinctively we both started looking around for something useful. We found a half-empty bottle of water, sandpaper, nails, ruler, box, plants (tomatoes, sage, etc.), buckets, full-length red down coat complete with hood, cookies, baseball helmet, mini soda, purse, but nothing really help this spider problem. No paper for mushing, no cup for catching. We thought about catching it in the bottle, but the spider was too big for the hole (now isn't that frightening?).

But we really wanted to catch it because this spider was too big to kill. There's a certain point where a spider becomes a trophy for the ordeal of finding it and being clever enough to capture the monster.

Mostly, though, the problem was that we were driving at this point, over 50 mph with a whole trail of cars behind us. The spider changed his route from me to my more attractive mother and she really started to panic. "Brianna! Brianna, find me something quick!"

Everything within my arm's reach was useless so I took my seatbelt off and went through the rest of the junk, berating Ben the whole time for not having the proper kind of trash in his car.

When the spider got to the other side of the dashboard and climbed up to Mom's eye-level (no doubt in the hopes of some romantic and sultry endeavor, or perhaps murder to the face) she decided the spider had more precedence than driving, so she pulled over to the side, though we had to pause our spider-dealings for a moment and figure out how to turn on the hazard lights (which was surprisingly tricky).

In the end we got a bucket and a pack of sandpaper. Slowly and gently my mom slid a baseball photo behind the spider (trying not to alarm it into fleeing into the crevice) and after several deep breaths she flicked it towards herself and I caught it in the bucket and slammed down the sandpaper.

Once the spider was contained we put our seatbelts back on and re-entered traffic, chuckling to ourselves, as though this was a typical event, and a typical way of dealing with it.

But of course, halfway home I wanted to make sure the spider was where he was supposed to be. So I peaked a look and found him right at the edge of the bucket, staring up at me, waiting. So I slammed the sandpaper back on, though by doing so almost dislodged the bucked from my legs. My mom screamed even though I caught it. No worries. Spider remained contained and is now enjoying some light and attraction.

We're pretty sure it's a kind of jumping spider, perhaps a bold jumping spider, kinda like this. The internet authority claims that jumping spiders are "completely harmless", but come on. A face and a look like that is very harmful. And even if they're not poisonous, per se, there is still a very probable psychological harm that comes from an encounter. So there.