Black widows and hiccups

I tend to think of myself as pretty fearless--for a girl, anyway. From cliff jumping to rock climbing to surfing to sky diving, I'll try it all in the name of a good time. But I do have three major fears, which I refer to as the three S's: snakes (deadly ones -- I used to play with garden snakes as a kid), sharks (all kinds, but especially great whites) and scary people (you know, the kind that end up in prison for life). There is also a fourth, lesser concern, which is coincidentally also an S: spiders -- more specifically, spiders of the poisonous variety. The others are unsanitary nuisances, and the poisonous kinds freak me out. Good thing I live in an area crawling with black widows, eh?

(See? I'm fearless! I jump off cliffs!)

Awhile back, a friend of mine found a black widow in her bathroom sink (despite having the home sprayed multiple times) and promptly killed it with a shoe. I told Matt if that had been me, I would've left the house and let the black widow have it. I was only partially kidding. My fear of deadly spiders can be traced back to my younger days, when my dad decided it would be funny to make his daughters watch Arachnophobia with him. Oh yeah, I developed arachnophobia alright. The potential situation that creeps me out the most would be having a poisonous spider in my bed -- far worse than in the bathroom sink, right?

(Or on my back porch, like this nasty creature.)

Fast forward to a few weeks ago, when a bad case of the hiccups struck right at bedtime. For some unknown reason, I got the hiccups like 1200 times during a 10-day period. Matt found it hilarious. We tried everything to get rid of them -- holding my breath, drinking upside down, etc. Matt tried "scaring" me a few times but come on, a "Boo!" around the corner probably only works on a 3-year-old. So there I was, laying in bed, helpless to combat the "hics" that violently escaped my mouth every few seconds. Meanwhile, Matt was trying to contain his laughter as he drifted off to sleep.

(That was me.)

About ten minutes later, my nearly-asleep husband's body suddenly stiffened. "Ash, don't move," he whispered urgently. "I just felt something on my leg." Naturally, I did the exact opposite, flinging the covers off and jumping out of bed as fast as I could to escape the treacherous beast that was surely in my sheets.

I rushed to turn on the lights and when I did, I saw Matt standing there, smiling. "You're welcome," he laughed. There was no spider. And no more hiccups, either! That little stinker had scared them away (and they haven't been back since!).