AAAAGGGGHHHH!!!

I was getting a coffee cup out of the cabinet this morning when I felt a great disturbance in the Force, causing me to look up the ceiling. Above my head was a large, black spider. Actually, it was more of a medium-sized black spider. Larger than a jumping spider, smaller than a wolf spider. Not hairy. Big, jointed legs. White spot in its torso. Anyway, I immediately assumed it was a black widow spider because, of course, I live in the desert and it's hot here, so therefore it must be a black widow spider. OK, I don't live in the desert and it's winter. Maybe it came in on the bananas. And sure, it was a white spot of some sort, not a red hourglass. Every internet search I did on the topic brought back "black widow spider," feeding into my terror.

Anyway, it was on the ceiling, so I was concerned that, should I stand on a chair to squish it, I might somehow miss (it's happened), causing it to fall either on me (probably down my sleeve), or onto the floor, where it would scurry away under the refrigerator and bide its time until it crept out and ate me.

SO. I just got a new dust buster a few days ago. I snatched it up and sucked the spider into it. As I sat here at the counter, my thoughts kept returning to the spider. Is it dead? Can it get out and hide under the refrigerator, biding its time until it eats me? I tried to pry open the dust buster to empty the basket and smash the spider to death (with my shoe, not with Noah, as my son would have done). However, the dust buster is so securely locked, I can't puzzle out how to open it. I'm thinking about throwing the whole thing away, just in case.

I'm not crazy.

P.S. I tried looking it up, but the pictures of spiders are freaking me out so much that I now feel like my skin is crawling. Kind of like that time we were invaded by ants, and I felt like my skin was crawling all the time, and then I looked down at my sleeve and there was an ant IN IT and I threw it across the room and threatened to move out of the house if Mark didn't come home and spray THAT INSTANT (I was pregnant, not that that completely explains my wigginess).