spiders, bugs, and bees, oh my!

So I don't know about you, but I am absolutely terrified of bugs. All of them, any of them. Flying, crawling, buzzing, stinging, biting, all of that shit. Not just the small fear of creepy crawly that some people have, but absolutely shitting my pants terror. I don't even like butterflies. I will admit, it has gotten better since my childhood when I would scream and run if a bee came within ten feet of me, but not a whole lot.

Now, I can squish the occasional tiny house spider or gnat (flies don't really bother me other than that they're annoying), but when it comes to the big ass basement and/or garage spiders, that's an entirely different story.

Which brings me to my point.

Yesterday appears to be a normal day at the customer service counter. It's a Thursday (and Valentine's Day, gag, but that's a different topic) and we're pretty slow. Enough to keep busy and make the day go by relatively fast, but slow enough to be able to take my time with things.

Enter customer: fifty or sixty-something (I'm terrible with ages) man carrying a small bag. He pulls out his product and says that it was missing a piece. I open the bag to check, because often customers are completely nuts and think that something is missing when its right there. It's a disc cleaner and I start pulling out pieces from the box. I see a little brown fuzz come out and land on my shirt. I think nothing of it and brush it off.

Let me say something before I continue...I've had lots of weird shit come in for returns and exchanges, I've had a family bring me a laptop covered in puke, I've seen all kinds of product brought in chewed up, run over, lit on fire, reeking of cigarettes and weed, wine soaked items - pretty much you name it, I've seen it, but this was a new one for me.

Anyway, the mystery item lands on the counter. It is not a fuzz. It is not a ball of hair. It is not a piece of fabric. It is not a small spaceship from Mars. It is the largest fucking spider in the entire world. A FUCKING SPIDER. And it is alive. VERY ALIVE. And it was on me. On my fucking body.

I would like to mention here that although it was only about the size of a quarter, I would still swear that it was at least as big as a small house.

This thing is ugly. I mean, it is absolutely beyond hideous. It is large and brown and hairy and has big legs and an even bigger body that those creepy little legs are attached to. And now it's running. Across the counter, straight for my customer. I start jumping up and down and making little squeaking noises while frantically pointing at it, trying to alert this nice man that he is about to be eaten alive.

Without even flinching, this guy (now my hero) calmly sets a piece of paper on top of it and proceeds to smash it. All he says is "there, problem solved."