King of the Throne

“What in the hell was that, Doc?”

“It was me.”

“Yeah, I know! But why?”

“I’m afraid of spiders, Sarge.”

“Oh, for chrissakes — gonna have to take your man-card away from you if you keep that shit up!”

No longer was I paying attention to unnecessary ass-chewing. Instead my eyes were focused on the tile floor at the sergeant’s feet. He looked down and saw the large black tarantula-like spider slowly passing between his highly glossed boots.

With an ungodly yelp, he tried to join me on the commode I was inhabiting. Nearly falling off, I pushed him back and demanded, “Get your own fucking toilet…this one’s presently occupied.”

Without touching the ground, the sergeant sprang from my perch to an adjacent one. As he did so, his left foot slipped and he dipped that boot ankle deep in toilet water.

He glared at me as I watched the spider slip away to places unknown through a small crack between the wall and floor, below the far sink. Five minutes later Sarge was on the horn demanding that our area be fumigated.