So I’m driving down the highway last night, cruising along at about 115km/hr (around 75mph) when out of the corner of my eye I see the silhouette of a spider crawling down my window.

“Oh God, it’s a spider,” I exclaim to my adult son in the passenger seat.

“I see it,” he says.

“Can you kill it? Without going across my line of sight?”

“Maybe,” he says. He’s panicking too. He hates bugs. He once tried to jump out of a moving van because we had a fruit fly travelling with us. No joke. Okay, he was three years old at the time, but you get the picture.

“If you can’t kill it, just watch where it goes. Tell me if it gets too close to me. NO WAIT! Don’t tell me.”

“Okay. I won’t tell you. But you might want to pull over.”

“I can’t pull over for a spider!! We’re on the frickin’ highway!”

“Okay, okay,” he says, sounding more anxious than ever. “But you don’t want to know where it is right now.”

“DON’T TELL ME! DO YOU WANT TO DIE?” We’re passing two transport trailers at this point, and I’ve sped up to 130 to get to the offramp. We’re almost home.

“NO! No, it’s okay. It’s nowhere near you.”

We stay quiet. I’m trying to sit as far away from the driver’s door as possible; I can see him looking my way out of the corner of my eye.

“It’s really dark,” he says. “I don’t see it anymore.”

I get off the highway and force myself to stay calm until we get to the parking lot of the nearest Tim Horton’s. As soon as I park the car I start looking for the beast.

“It crawled along your arm and into the back seat,” my son admits. “It was only this big though.” He holds his hand up and forms an “o” that’s less than the size of a dime.

“No, it’s huge,” I argue.

He looks at me, but says nothing.

“Well, thank you for not telling me it was crawling on me,” I say. “I didn’t want to die tonight.”

“Me neither.”

Then I say, “Okay, I’m going in to get a coffee. You stay here and look for the spider.” (It’s such a privilege, being a mom.)

“Get me a croissant,” he says. It’s the least I can do.

A few minutes later he comes into the restaurant. “I couldn’t find the spider.”

“Oh no,” I sigh.

I managed to get us the rest of the way home without freaking out last night, but we still haven’t found the spider. Despite the fact that it was the size of a puppy.

Anyone want a really cheap car?