(Dear Lucy and I...this picture has nothing to do with this storyexcept that we were there together)
Most times I think that I can live on my own, take care of myself, and that I'm fine. However, that was proved untrue today. I was driving my old roommate Lucy to get a smoothie on this super hot summer day when I suddenly saw a huge spider crawling up the by the steering wheel, right next to my leg. Anyone who knows much about me knows that I really truly dislike spiders. I'm quite afraid of them even. If they are small and I have a shoe I'm okay. However, when they are the size of a tennis ball and they are crawling ever nearer to your leg and you are in the middle of driving a hunk of metal I am not okay. All I could think was, "Get out, get out of the car before it touches you!" So I carrended towards the curb even hitting it with the front tire before I put the car in neutral and sprang out. My sweet friend was sitting there all the while going, "What, what!" Thinking that maybe the steering had gone out and I couldn't control the vehicle or that there was a fire in the engine. She was a little annoyed I think when I finally could utter the words, "Spider big spider." However, when she came around and saw the monster she understood why I freaked out. I am so thankful that we weren't driving on a major road or I probably would have crashed much worse than that.
We stood outside the car for probably about 15 minutes trying to find the wretched creature. People slowly drove by staring at the two strange girls who were staring at their parked car with all the doors wide open. Yet, typical for this neighborhood, no one stopped to see if we were okay. Lucy was brave and tried to find the thing. I, however, mostly paced around and made groaning noises. I flatly refused to get back in the car to drive the short distance remaining before we arrived at the restaurant. I told Lucy either we're both walking and leaving this car right here or you are driving and I'm walking. Now, this is especially funny since Lucy is 17 and doesn't have a driver's license. I don't mean that she doesn't have a Thai license, she doesn't have a license at all and hasn't practiced driving in 9 months. She finally agreed that she would drive as long as I was in the car with her. So I curled up in the passenger seat and focused on coaching her through driving our beast. She did an excellent job.
Once at the restaurant I relived the horror of the spider and we decided to get dinner so I would have time to calm down. I tried to determine if I knew every male that walked, rode, or drove by the window and if I could ask them to help me conquer this spider. As we walked back to the car I had to convince myself to be brave and get over the fear since we really didn't know if the spider was still in the car or not. I kept telling Lucy stare at my feet and look for the spider make sure that it isn't crawling over here. She was looking and I was trying to concentrate on driving, but I couldn't I kept looking for the spider too. After we had driven just a little ways from the restarant I saw it climbing up my door! I pulled over quickly (not hitting the curb this time) and told Lucy "I see it!" I hoped out again and Lucy came around to see. Sure enough the thing was sitting there behind the driver's seat. Then I did something quite shameful. I went back to the restaurant to ask for help from a high school freshman boy who had helped me take care of kids in the nursery at church. He walked to the car with me and took a swing at the spider with his shoe. However, the spider did his disappearing act and didn't resurface. We said thanks to the boy and let him get back to his drink at the restaurant. Then we looked at each other. We couldn't get in the car since he was still in there. We couldn't go anywhere. We couldn't get him out. We were feeling quite defeated.
Enter...our heroes. We had stopped across the street from a dorm or a children's home of some sort. There was a woman sitting on the porch watching us. She came out and asked in Thai what was happening. I told her there was a very big spider. She said, "Oh you're scared? Foreigners are always scared of spiders." I told her yes I was definitely a foreigner who was very scared of spiders. I told her where I had last seen the monster and she called to her house full of children to come and help this lady who was freaking out about a spider. So out they came, in all I think about ten kids (there were more in the house) and this one older lady. They started searching in the car, pulling out rugs, moving the seats, and then they got a broom. I think they realized that this strange foreign woman was going to stand there all night unless the issue was resolved.
The woman told me that it wouldn't bite me. I wasn't so sure. She said that foreigners are scared of spiders because spiders bite in their country, but she hasn't ever heard of a spider biting someone in Thailand. I was reminded of how all Thai people are very afraid of caterpillars. Where I come from, kids play with them all the time, but here if they touch you it is extremely painful.
So after at least ten minutes of these boys searching my car one of them spotted it! He tried to catch it with his hands but the lady didn't want him to. After a bit of a struggle between boy and spider the boy eventually flung the spider out of the car. The sweet Thai lady stomped on the creature. Even they were quite surprised at how big the spider was. After we thanked them profusely they all trotted back to their house. I was so thankful to have the problem taken care of so we could go home in peace.
Moral of the story, I cannot take care of myself when it comes to spiders. I need a handful of boys to take care of that for me. I will always be so thankful that they noticed our distress and came and helped. This morning I was reading about loving your neighbor as yourself. They definitely were a pretty good example of that.
