Not Suitable Reading for Pregnant Women, Folks with Heart Conditions, or Scaredy Cats

Sometimes, there are things more horrifying than discovering in the outpatient-surgery waiting room that the cracker crumbs on your husband's shirt are actually flakes of dry skin from his goatee.

Like when you are making yourself a delicious plate of super nachos for your lupper, the chips all layered with shredded extra-sharp cheddar, fajita chicken, Save A Lot Senora Verde Mild Salsa, sour cream, and black olives...and you hear a tiny "plop" from somewhere to the left of your visual field.

Oh, you might just think it's that 9x13 glass baking pan that you left on the stove from last night's Shake 'N' Bake pork steaks, heating up because it's on the burner, and you have the oven going to warm up your fajita chicken. Yes. That could be it. The congealed pan-drippings, perhaps, have released a bubble like a more-high-calorie, less-colorful, lava lamp. That would certainly make a sound like "plop."

And that little movement you sensed at the bottom of the microwave, just above that pork-steak dish, could have been a blob of grease plopping up high to hit the vent fan. Indeed. Anything is possible when you don't want to face the horror. Until the horror grabs your face with both hands, and MAKES YOU LOOK!

Uh huh. While glancing curiously in the direction of the perceived movement, the true gravity of the situation wrests the hands of horror from your cheeks, and splashes them with the ice-cold water of reality. AN EIGHT-SPINDLY-LEGGED HARVESTMAN AMBLES OUT OF THE PAN-DRIPPINGS, OVER THE BOTTLE OF SALINE NASAL SPRAY SITTING STOVE-SIDE, ACROSS THE LID OF THE PLASTIC BOTTLE OF XARELTO, AND TRIES TO LONG-LEG-IT BEHIND THE WOODEN PAPER PLATE HOLDER LABELED "EVERYDAY CHINA."

"Paula Deen in my front yard eating a lobster tail!" That's not an actual out-loud exclamation of shock. It's like that Saturday Night Live sketch long ago with Ray Romano as an ESPN host, hollering stuff like, "Sweet Pappy Johnson with an erection!" Only in print, and a bit more socially acceptable. Val Thevictorian's answer to Gretchen Wieners's 'fetch'. Let the record show that Val has been trying to make it happen since before the cataclysmic downfall of Ms. Deen.

Hopefully, you have a damp paper towel beside your plate of soon-to-be super nachos that you have just used to wipe up a dab of errant salsa, and you slam that select-a-size down on Mr. Harvestman and skoosh him until his life is a forgotten memory.

I swear. You would think I live in a dilapidated oak barn, the roof reduced to lattice suitable for growing grapes to later sell at a roadside stand, where insects run rampant and humans are the invaders.

I will worry tonight that a creeper will crawl into my mouth as I sleep.