But you weren't so very itsy-bitsy. In fact you were quite a sizable beast. No fault of your own, mind you, but the fact remains that you were roughly the size of a half-dollar and you surpassed the limit of my live-and-let-live policy by about 25 cents.

In my defense, let it be on record that I was not only taken aback by your size and unexpected presence in my shower, but also completely and utterly naked. Watching your spindly (though substantial) legs seek purchase on the slick wet walls of my bathtub envinced in me rival feelings of pity and disgust. The thought of how close I came to feeling those bristly appendages traverse my bare flesh...well, honestly, it made me sort of angry with you, and a scared, angry, naked woman constitutes a formidable foe for one of your stature; a valuable lesson that might have been of some benefit had you the good fortune to survive our encounter!

You should have killed me when you had the chance, my hairy little friend. How long had I stood with my back turned, oblivious to your presence and prone to attack? A well-placed bite to the Achilles tendon might have felled me, causing me to bump my head and Bhutto myself right off this mortal coil. Alas and alack, you had not the killer instinct for an act of such aggression! I suspect you wasted your window of opportunity waving your (comparatively) lilliputian legs around, searching in vain for an avenue to higher ground.

It was with a heavy heart and a penitent hand that I squished your little (seriously, you were huge) body under a washcloth. Indeed, I apologized quite sincerely the entire time I was grinding you into the side of the tub. It was likely the last thing you heard and I do hope it brought you some comfort.

Though I tried to ensure your ruin came as quickly and painlessly as possible, I suspect your ghost still harbored a grudge about the injustice done unto you by mine own hand, and so endeavored to play tricks on me. Every tickle of hair or fibre would have me slapping at myself, coaxing rosy-hot florets into bloom just beneath the skin. Was it possible I had failed to end you definitively? Are spiders capable of persisting with eight broken legs and an exploded abdomen? How your tiny spirit must have laughed at the sight of your executioner turning the very weapon that destroyed you upon her own person!

I really wish the circumstance of our meeting had been more agreeable. Perhaps, happening upon you crafting your residence-cum-buffet in a sunlit clearing, I would stop and admire your ingenuity from a respectable distance. I'd say "Hey, spider! That's a neat trick!" and you would say...well, being a spider, you probably wouldn't have much in the way of a response. But that would be okay. That's just the kind of relationship we could have had, you and I. Parting amicably, I would go home to write about what a cool web I saw, and you would sit in your gossamer throne of butt-silk, occupying yourself with whatever it is spiders do when I'm not squishing them.

Regrettably, today was simply not your day; nor was it mine. Though I emerged victorious and you emerged glued to a facecloth with your own guts, believe me when I say I took no pleasure from snuffing out your hirsute little candle. So...no hard feelings, right?

Christ, I hope you didn't lay any fucking eggs in my shower.