It is 2:45 am and I have a situation. About 3 hours ago, I spotted a spider in the bedroom. I was just about to get into bed when I saw it climbing up the wall. My initial reaction was to feel grateful that I had not yet turned out the light. What if I hadn't known it was there? Thankfully, I saw it. I stood on the bed and panicked. All sorts of things went through my head.

First ' the article I read in the tabloids about the invisible spider ' highly poisonous - that came in a bunch of bananas and bit a woman ' or was it a man ' it bit someone. And they nearly died.
.
Second ' I thought of a friend of mine who years ago was bitten by a brown recluse spider while she slept and then nearly lost her leg.

Third ' I thought of how I could never go on I'm A Celebrity - even though I'm not a celebrity and would never be asked, it didn't matter ' the point was there are spiders in the jungle. Loads of them.
I felt a surge of admiration for all those celebrities. Even though I couldn't remember who they were.

At this point, I'm standing on the bed wondering who to call and what to do. It was too late to call a friend and, who would I call anyway? Liza in New York? She's got her own problems with mice. This is what a husband is for. I'm fine most of the time on my own but I really just need someone to deal with things like spiders in the bedroom late at night.

Someone needs to come up with a 24-hour hotline to call for Emergency spider, bug, and vermin situations.

Just then, as I'm thinking of all this'I can see that the spider has moved to the ceiling and is now sliding down. At least I think it's the same spider. I watch as it slides - not so slowly either - inches away from where I had just been standing. It was like a horror movie.
If I hadn't moved it would have landed on me.

So now I'll be up all night because there is no way I can go to sleep. Who can sleep with a spider in the room? It could crawl up my leg or into my ear.

I decided since I'm up all night anyway to go on the web and I googled: 'Spiders in London.'
BAD IDEA. I'd thought it might be reassuring if I could spot the spider and see that it wasn't deadly. But I hadn't counted on all the close-up photos of all the spiders. Then, under the heading 'UK Spider Bites' it said: It may come as a surprise that a dozen or more spider species resident in the UK are capable of.'
I couldn't bring myself to click and find out the rest of that sentence.

Now it's 3:30 am. I keep looking up at the ceiling every 5 minutes making sure there aren't any spiders descending. This spider wasn't tiny either. It had long longs that looked very'spidery. And, it's still alive. Only now I don't know where it's gone. It could be in my boot, waiting to bite my toe.

I don't know what to do. There are other people out there who have been in this situation, I'm sure. What happened? What did you do? Are you still alive?