The Spider.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before, but I am deathly afraid of spiders. I'm not exaggerating.

One time I found a tiny (like, the size of a sugar ant) spider crawling on me. I screamed. Loudly. For a whole minute. While flailing around like an idiot trying to get it off me. But all that did was make the spider fall down my shirt to where I could no longer see it. Defeated, I sat down and cried for the next five minutes.

It was a truly traumatic experience and I am scarred for life by it.

Spider - 1, Kayla - 0.

Last week, I had just finished locking our dogs up in their crates in the garage for the night, when I heard one of them crying. I ignored it at first, but the crying persisted and my mom had me go check on them to see what was wrong.

As soon as I opened the garage door, of course the crying stopped. Unable to figure out what was wrong, I went back inside and began to get ready for bed. The crying started again.

This time I went and actually let them back outside for a few minutes in case someone just needed to go to the bathroom or run around or something. After a couple of minutes, I locked them back up and went back inside.

About five minutes later, the crying began again. My mom told me just to let them out and leave them out. So I went into the garage, let them out of their crates, and then followed them to the garage door to let them into the backyard.

As we were walking to the door, I saw a big black spot on one of my dogs. At first I thought it was just dirt, but then I noticed it was moving. I looked again and sure enough -- a GIANT spider (probably the size of a quarter, which qualifies as giant as far as spiders are concerned) was hitching a ride on my dog.

My dog who was now standing in between me and the door to the backyard. Which meant that a giant spider was standing between me and the door to the backyard.

I froze. I began to panic. I screamed. And then I turned around and ran inside, slamming the door behind me.

"THERE'S A GIANT SPIDER ON BUCK!" I screamed at my mom. "HE'S STANDING IN FRONT OF THE DOOR. I WOULD HAVE TO GO NEAR THE SPIDER. I CAN'T LET THEM OUT."

My mom convinced me that the spider was probably not on him anymore and to try again. I cracked open the door to see my very confused dogs wondering why I left them loose in the garage. I looked at Buck. I saw the spider. And it had doubled in size (now the size of a half-dollar coin). I screamed. I slammed the door. I went into hysterics yelling things like "I CAN'T DO IT" and "WHAT IF IT EATS ME?"

I almost made my mom who had just had shoulder surgery and was already settled into her recliner for the night get up and put them away, but she convinced me to try once more.

I opened the door. I looked at my still very confused dogs. I examined Buck closely. I didn't see anything. I took a step out. It still looked good. Maybe the spider was no longer on him.

But wait.

If the spider was no longer on Buck...then OH MY GOSH THE SPIDER WAS IN THE GARAGE SOMEWHERE WAITING TO EAT ME.

Enter adrenaline rush. Unsure of where the spider was lurking, I ran to the side door, yelling at Buck the whole time to STAY AWAY FROM ME. I opened the door, they ran out, and I slammed the door shut behind me as I ran screaming back inside.

Spider - 2, Kayla - 0.

I came back inside to find my mom literally dying from laughing at me. I was less amused.

"The spider wasn't on Buck anymore and now I'm afraid it's hiding somewhere on me," I said, offended that my mom was laughing at me when my life was at stake.

Suddenly, she stopped laughing and looked at me. She had this really serious, concerned look on her face. And then she gasped.

And that was all it took.

I screamed bloody murder and jumped a couple feet into the air, flailing my arms around for about two seconds. And then, as my mom once more burst into laughter, I realized what a cruel trick she had just played on me.

Spider - 2, Mom - 1, Kayla - 0.

But don't worry. One day, when it is proven that spiders are in fact little tiny demons that steal your soul and then kill you, I will have the last laugh, and my score will finally be Kayla - 1.

P.S. I was going to add a picture of a spider for effect, but I couldn't do it. The pictures on Google were horrifying and I couldn't look long enough to decide on one.

You Alone Can Rescue.

I know I exaggerate a lot, and so what I'm about to say will probably not mean much to you, but it's for real this time, y'all.

I almost died today.

It was a normal Sunday morning. I got up, got ready for church, and was in my car by 9:30 to arrive 15 minutes early for the 10:00 elementary girls' class that I help with.

I turned to the country music station because they do a top 40 countdown on Sundays. I backed out of my driveway, pulled out of my neighborhood, and got on the ramp to I-35.

I drove up the ramp, rocking out to Two Black Cadillacs by Carrie Underwood, I turned the corner -- freeway in sight -- and I felt my car start to drift to the right.

That's weird, I thought. I was driving straight and I knew my alignment wasn't off, so I wasn't sure why my car was veering to the right. So I lightly turned the wheel to the left to compensate.

But it went too far to the left. Which didn't make sense, because I had barely turned the wheel. I turned the wheel to the right -- again, lightly -- because I was in the far left lane and was getting closer and closer to the side of the ramp (which, by the way, was about 20 feet above the ground).

My car went even farther this time, taking me from the left shoulder to the far right lane (it was a two-lane ramp). As I veered closer to the far right side of the ramp (again, about 20 feet off the ground), I decided I was about to die. But I wasn't going to give up just yet.

I made one last left turn of the wheel to get away from the edge of the ramp and then slammed on my brakes. My car momentarily spun out of control before coming to a complete stop right in the middle of the two lanes.

My heart was racing and I couldn't really breathe, but I needed to get out of the middle of everything, so I very, very carefully pulled into the shoulder, turned on my flashers, and called for help (because I was NOT about to try driving again).

 This was almost me.

Thankfully, my mom was just about to leave for church, so she was able to come pick me up. My dad came by a little later to look at my car and move it into a parking lot where it would be safer.

I was late to church but I don't think anyone really cared about that when I had just narrowly escaped death.

The crazy part is this: when I turned the corner on the ramp, just seconds before my car TRIED TO KILL ME, there were cars all around me. When my car suddenly lost control, all the cars that had been near me had gotten ahead of me, and no one was behind me. The area was completely empty until I had made it safely to the shoulder. Once I was in the shoulder, there was pretty much a steady flow of traffic. I was all over the road; had there been anyone there, I would have absolutely hit them.

Had I hit the side of the ramp, there's a good chance I would have gone over the edge at the speed I was going at. I was incredibly close to hitting both sides, but in both cases was able to swerve back to the other side.

As I was sitting in our church service later, we sang the song You Alone Can Rescue. These are the words:

"You alone can rescue, You alone can save

You alone can lift us from the grave

You came down to find us, led us out of death

To You alone belongs the highest praise."

I know that this song is technically talking about salvation and Jesus dying on the cross for us, but today I felt it had another meaning, because God literally rescued, saved, and led me out of death (or at least some severe injuries) this morning. And He definitely deserves the highest praise.

I wish I could credit my awesome driving/remaining-calm-in-a-crisis skills, but I can't. All glory goes to God on this one.

There is simply no other explanation.

I Almost Died Today.

And now I know what it's like to see your entire life flash before your eyes.

And when you get through reading this, you're going to hate me for scaring you into thinking I almost died when in fact I was nowhere near death. But I wanted to die.

Here's how it went down:

I am taking a music class this semester called History of Jazz. Today we were scheduled to have a guest speaker who's a famous jazz drummer from New Orleans, named Adonis Rose (he toured with Harry Connick, Jr.!). It is also important to note that I almost skipped this class today, because of something going on in another class that overlapped with Jazz. However, when I heard we were having a guest speaker I was intrigued, and decided to work around the other thing.

Normally when people hear a guest speaker is coming to class they think they're going to like, come to class and talk and stuff, right? I thought he was going to speak about being in a jazz band and his background, and maybe play some drums for us.

Instead, he came into class, introduced himself and gave us a little bit of his background, and then he quizzed us.

Meaning, he picked on random people in the class to answer questions about jazz history. He called on me once. I didn't know the answer, but it wasn't a big deal. Most people didn't know the answers.

He then wanted to know who in the room were musicians by show of hands. So we raised our hands and then he asked specifically for singers, of which I am. So I kind of shyly raised my hand, but he was all like "Raise 'em real high!" so I raised my hand higher along with a couple other people in the class.

And then he was like, "Great, we'll have to get y'all up here to sing for us," and went on to ask if there were any rappers. We all chuckled when he said that because it was a funny joke.

It wasn't a joke.

And this is where my life starts flashing before my eyes.

After finding out if there were any rappers or poets in the room, he called on one of the singers to come up and sing a song. Per a fellow classmate's request, he sang You Are My Sunshine.

After that, he called on the only poor guy in the room who said he was a poet and made him recite a poem. I felt bad for the poor chum who recited this sappy love poem to the entire class. I'm sure it wasn't written for public recitation.

Then he goes back to the singers and I'm sitting in my chair shaking panicking convulsing and he calls on a girl in the front row. She sang At Last by Etta James, which is very appropriate for a jazz class. She sounded really good, but she hit a few bad notes, probably because nerves and big songs don't go well together.

Then he couldn't remember who else was a singer and I'm all like yes I'm off the hook! Praise God. and then he looks at me and points and says "You in the striped shirt" (and I regretted immediately wearing a striped shirt, though I'm not sure that made much of a difference).

And then I died.

But my vocal chords were still very much alive, which meant I had to get up and do this thing. He asked me what my name was and I squeaked out "Kayla". I could almost hear the Death March as I walked to the front of the class, which so conveniently has a stage.

I avoided all eye contact with the audience until I started singing. Adonis asked me what I was going to sing, and I tried to make a joke because I use humor as a defense mechanism. I said, "I'm going to sing a country song. I would do jazz but I don't know many of those."

I know what you're thinking...that's not funny. That's a perfectly normal statement to make...yeah. I know. It sounded funnier in my head.

So then I sang my song. The Night Before (Life Goes On) by Carrie Underwood. I sound good on that song and it was the first one I thought of so I went for it. And I sang through the first verse and chorus of that song, and I walked back to my seat to a reprise of the Death March, and then I died again.

And then another girl came up and just showed up all of us with her stupid confidence. She sounded like Norah Jones and she sang a song she wrote all by herself because apparently she's a budding singer/songwriter.

And now it's been about an hour since this horrific experience and I'm sitting in the cafe, still recovering. Still shaking a bit.

But on the bright side, my Facebook status about this experience has 15 likes and counting.

Awkward Moment #324.

I made up that number. It's really probably a lot higher than 324.

So classes started back up today. Well, they started yesterday, but I'm only taking Tuesday/Thursday classes so for me, they started today. Anyway.

I'm taking four classes, from 9:30-3:30. No breaks in between for lunch (that is called poor planning, people), but since today was mainly just going over the syllabus, I got out of almost all my classes 45 minutes early.

After my 11:00 class which I got out of about 11:40, I was starving, so I decided to head over to the University Center for lunch. I got Chickfila. It was yummy.

Anyway.

It's always really awkward trying to find seating in there. Because all the tables are usually occupied by multiple people...it's really hard to find one seat that's appropriately spaced from the other groups at the same table. But eventually I found one and sat down to enjoy my lunch.

Anyway.

I was facing another table, and a guy sat down on the side facing me with a Subway sandwich. While he was eating, I happened to notice a piece of lettuce stuck to his lip. So naturally, I did what anyone would do in this situation: I stared at it.

I wanted to see if it would fall off or if it was going to stay stuck there. So I'm staring at this guy for like, I don't know, a minute, when suddenly, he looks up. Right at me.

I quickly avert my gaze.

I turn my head slightly to look back down at my food, and out of my peripheral vision I see this guy smiling and waving at me.

Do I wave back? Do I acknowledge him? What do I do?

Well, I'll tell you what I did.

I mustered up some courage and eked out a very, VERY timid smile that you would only notice if you were looking for it really, REALLY hard.

And then he starts to get up. And I'm FREAKING out.

This is essentially what went through my head: Oh my gosh he's getting up. Oh my gosh. Is he coming over here? Don't look. Whatever you do don't look. Oh my gosh. Does he think you were trying to communicate interest? How do I explain to him that I was staring at him because he had a piece of lettuce stuck to his lip? This is going to be soooo awkward.

Anyway.

He gets up. And as he's doing so, he's saying something, but I can't tell what. And he starts walking...and he's getting closer and closer...

And he completely ignores me as he walks by and joins his friends at a different table.

Apparently, when I was staring at the lettuce on his lip, some friends of his at another table spotted him and yelled his name, which is why he looked up. And then the whole time he was smiling and waving at them, not me. Which hopefully means he didn't notice me smiling.

So I guess it wasn't really an awkward moment...but it almost was.

I felt awkward, at least.

REALLY awkward.

Moral of the story: don't stare at lettuce on strangers' lips.

The Texting Mannequin.

Soooo....I don't know if anyone's noticed, but I've been kind of MIA recently. The last couple weeks have been CRAZY. Reason being, the week before Thanksgiving is the week that all the teachers decide to make big projects/tests due. And due to my play being the week before, I was already behind. And then I've actually been surprisingly busy this week preparing for Thanksgiving. But now Thanksgiving is over and I actually have some time to accomplish some of the things on my "To Do Over Thanksgiving Break" list that has been slowly gathering dust...

Anyway, Thanksgiving yesterday was AWESOME. But I'll post about that tomorrow or Sunday, because I have another story I want to tell right now, and I like my blog to be in chronological order.


This is a totally random story from Tuesday but I want to share it because it's kind of hilarious. It was really awkward/frightening/embarrassing at the time, but now it's just funny. :-) haha, I will try to do it justice.

So, Tuesday my friend and I were shopping at Forever 21. We were trying on some clothes in the dressing room, but I got done first. So I was looking at the clothes right outside the dressing room while waiting for her.

I knew there was a mannequin nearby and as I was looking at a dress on one of the racks, I saw it out of the corner of my eye. I sort of did a double-take, because I noticed something I didn't notice before. The mannequin was looking at something in its hands.

Was the mannequin texting? It sure looked like it. Wow, I thought. They really have our generation nailed. I wasn't quite sure how a texting mannequin would help sell clothes, but hey, I'm not their marketer. What do I know?

Then I looked again. Was that a real cell phone the mannequin had? It sure looked like it. That's weird that they would actually buy a real cell phone for a fake person...

So I got a little closer. And closer, and closer, and closer...until I was right up next to it, just staring at the cell phone.

And then it turned and looked at me.

OH MY GOSH. Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. It was a real person! Holy crap, it was a real person. A real person that I was standing about 2 inches away from. Staring at their cell phone. I wanted to die.

As soon as she looked at me, my reflexes kicked in. I have never turned around and pretended to be interested in an ugly piece of clothing so fast in my life. Seriously. It was almost ninja-like.

I was so mortified, and the girl gave me weird looks the rest of the time I was in the store. But I don't really blame her. I would have done the same thing.

Like that one time, when I was in the girls' bathroom at a restaurant washing my hands and a man walked in. (Yes, you read right, a MAN.) I gave him weird looks every time I saw him, too. Well, actually, I just cracked up laughing. But same difference.

Anyway, that story was probably A LOT funnier in person. And to me. But I thought I'd share it anyway. :-) And look out in a few days for stories from Thanksgiving!

Tonight, My Worst Nightmare Came True.

I always knew it would happen eventually. But deep down, I always hoped it wouldn't. It was the worst thing ever. I was so scared. I was about to cry.

That's right: I got lost driving home, and my phone was dead.

Those of you who know me well are probably laughing your face off right about now.

It was the worst experience ever. I was driving home from babysitting over in Lake Worth. I couldn't remember exactly how to get home, but I knew I was supposed to go on 820. I wasn't sure if it was east or west, but I live in the southwest, so I went for west.

Last time I came home from their house, 820 took me to 35, and I could easily get home from there. So I'm on 820, and I am NOT seeing 35. 820 West turned into 820 South. Last time I drove on 820 South, I never ran into 35. Instead I ran into 20, and got home that way. So, as I'm driving down 820, I see a sign for 20 West, and think "Oh, that's where I'm supposed to go!" I exit. I immediately know that was a mistake.

Nothing looks familiar. There are no street signs. No exits. Nowhere to turn around. My phone is dead. Is this really happening to me???

 I keep driving. 5 minutes later...a sign! A sign with the words "Weatherford" and "Abilene," and another sign that says "Aledo."

Um...what happened to Fort Worth?

At this point I'm pretty sure I've gone too far west, so I exit Aledo, turn around, and get on what I think is 20 East.

Now all I see are signs for Dallas, Shreveport, and downtown, none of which are places I want to go. Suddenly, the exit numbers start over at 1...wait a minute. Whenever I'm traveling on 20 East, the exit I take to get home is like 300-something...

There's no way I'm this far from home.

That's when I realize I've somehow ended up on 30 East. I'm so confused.

I see a sign for 820 South, and am about to turn back on it, when I see the next sign up says "Las Vegas Trail". I KNOW THAT SIGN! It's right after (or before, when coming east) Cherry Lane, where I have my voice lessons. So I continue on 30 and make my way home from there. Let's just say I was kind of in a rush to get home before my parents filed a missing person's report on me.

So, in a nutshell, tonight I left Lake Worth around 11, took a quick detour through Aledo, and barely made it home in time for the 12 o'clock curfew. And, in another nutshell, what I learned is: charge my phone and bring a map.

Yeah...you'd think I'd have learned that by now...

*By "tonight," I definitely mean last Friday night, when this happened and I wrote this. My internet was being stupid and wouldn't let me post it last week. This is the first chance I've gotten to post it since my internet's been back up. :)