One of those nights

I follow my hunches. Some nights just feel weird. When they do, I follow my instincts. My lovely wife and I spent a quiet evening in town with friends. As soon as we stepped out of their house, I had one of those feelings. Strangeness was in the air.

For one thing, it was a warm night, the sort of night when critters roam. To add to the strange ambiance, the air was heavy with smoke from Quebec forest fires. The smell of smoke goes right to the primitive part of a man's brain. It heightens senses to danger.

I drove slow, 35 in the 50 zone, and 28 in the 40 zone. Saw eyes in the night, but they were close to the ground, raccoons and skunks. Then just as I was on the last mile home, a huge dark bulk heaved itself up and jumped into the road. Good thing I was going so slow as I was just barely able to avoid hitting a very large moose.

That'll get your heart pumping.

Then I come into the house carrying in a bag from the truck. My wife has a broom and looks like she's holding something at bay in my office.

"Put the bag down and come here," she said.

I took the broom from her and confronted a huge spider, about half the size of my hand. I've a huge paw of a hand, like something on a low land gorilla. The first whack with the broom bent the handle and the spider wasn't even hurt. It took several more hard whacks and the destruction of the broom to do the job.

My wife has a bit of a arachnophobia. She's scared of fairly small spiders. This beast was big enough to give me a phobia.

Yep, one of those nights.

-Sixbears