along came a spider and sat down beside her

Except the spider didn't really sit, it more dangled from the ceiling in front of the back door.

I thought it was a fly and tried to swat it out of the door, as I had been in the process of letting the cat in. When I swatted it, spider legs made contact with my hand about the same time HAH yelled "SPIDER!" and I realized it was very much not a fly. I shrieked and backed up, knocked over my mother's prized Christmas Cactus, shattered the pot it was planted in, fell over backwards and rolled through the rubble to a stop just to the side of the dinner table, much to the delight of those in the dining room (though I don't blame them, I bet it looked pretty funny).

After picking myself up and helping clean up the mess I mostly just felt stupid (and still a little scared).

And I thought the pizza incident was bad. :)

Sorry Mom!!!