I was having a moment in the bathroom –and by" moment" I mean the brief moment of happy release that follows all the rigmarole of "going to the bathroom" that happens when you're getting more and more pregnant– when suddenly I saw IT.
IT was this spider, no larger than half an inch, but FURRY and very spidery looking and very much alive and moving around and FURRY.
Normally I don't mind spiders: I know that they are beneficial and that they eat all manner of undesirable bugs (read: the mosquitoes that are STILL flying all over the place in NOVEMBER) and that they are cute and charming little individuals and whatnot, but there is some sort of mechanism that goes off in a human's mind –especially a defenseless and self-unpantsed human who is enclosed with said FURRY spider in a little alcove no larger than three feet by three feet– that just blocks everything else in her mind and makes her do two things:
1. Panic, and
2. Awkwardly waddle toward the computer and look up spiders on the internet, of course.
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Apparently, the spider in question was a jumping spider. I must say, they are rather cute once one gets past the FURRY appearance –some of them even appear to be smiling, really. And they are deeply beneficial and fierce little things, and they attack brown recluses which I must say is an added bonus.
Spiders are good little creatures. They can even be cute. And they fear us more than we fear them.
I'm glad I didn't reach for a shoe.
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I also wish that, when we're caught unawares and self-unpantsed in the great chaotic whirlwind of life and we encounter a creature or a person or a belief that makes us scream and freak out and fear for our safety right off that bat, that we can count on a place such as bugguide.net or Wikipedia to allay our fears and explain to us what it is we truly fear.
Is it the hair, or is it ourselves we fear the most?
A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm! 
Jumping spiders are everywhere here, all the time.. they don’t bother me at all now, even though just about every other spider sends me into a tizzy…