gigantic. hairy. tarantula. in. our. bed.

That just about sums up the reason for my new arachnaphobia induced paranoia. I turned, curious as to what had made Brett exclaim in mild shock, "Oh, my!" When I spotted the hairy monster tying to crawl away from Brett's looming figure over the bed, I pretty much lost it. Stepping into the role of the brave hero, Brett trapped it in a huge yogurt container while I tried to snag a photo of it for you all to see here. Notice there is no photo. I simply did not have the guts to look at the thing long enough to get a photo. It might have had something to do with the fact that Brett had to keep shaking the yogurt container, as this baby was attempting to climb out. Did I mention it wasn't a single serving container...it was family sized?

I should fill you in on a major detail here. The tarantulas down here are non-venomous. Call me crazy, but I don't find much comfort in this. It helps a little, but when faced with having a gigantic hairy spider on your bed, it's not like you're that rational in the first place.

The Chileans refer to these non-lethal tarantulas as pollitos, which translates to "little chicken". I'm assuming it has to do with being fluffy and roughly the size of a chicken. Maybe they eat chickens for breakfast. Brett insists that our pollito was in fact a pollitito...just a "poor baby tarantula who probably got lost and wound up in our bed."

I have been getting the heebie-jeebies all day, convincing myself that I just felt something crawling on my leg. on my side. on my neck. wherever. I just can't shake that feeling like something is there that isn't supposed to be. I hope this fades soon. There has always been a pollito check before crawling under the covers at night, but you can bet they'll be militantly thorough starting tonight.