You're going to the bathroom, presumably to do bathroom things, for you have drunk quite a bit of water- the days have been hot lately and since you have eschewed other liquid refreshments such as sodie-pop and iced-tea because they are bad for your teeth, good for your gut, and indifferent to your wallet, you have consumed probably more liquid than you would have otherwise, water is cheap, filtered water is tasty, but to be honest all the water in your bladder has little to do with your going downstairs to visit the head, that's right, call it a head, you brave young Naval officer plowing the waves of fear that once kept you aport. No, you are going downstairs because it behooved you to exit your workplace when you did, because you did the second bravest act of your entire life just a few minutes before, although you do not see your entire life the way an omniscient being sees it, and so do not know that it is the second bravest thing you have ever done in your life, even braver than the time when you will enter a dark cave to rescue a lost child, more brave than the time you will face down a hungry wolf outside of the city limits because it is trying to get at your backpack, and even more brave than the time when you will get punched righteously in the face by a drunk when you're thirty-three, then kicked, then sliced open temple to temple by what would seem to be a brilliant use of a butterfly knife but what is actually dumb luck, and despite which owing to your bravery you will stand up anyway and give him a left cross the likes of which even his granpa will surely feel, dead or not. No, what you did was the second most brave thing you will have or ever have done, which is, you asked the cute brunette with the green eyes and the legs that make you weep in your sleep out on a date.

And. She. Said. Yes!

Go on, now, enter the betiled room which has the perfect acoustics for farting, and fart away, if you must, piss a river, shit a brick, do whatever you want, hunt deer, slaughter lions, dismantle an eighteen wheeler and eat the motherfucking parts, you're a man, goddamnit, a brave man, charge the pillbox, capture the flag, evade enemy capture, whip out Dr. Longfellow and pee for what seems like an age, goddamn, you did drink a lot of water, didn't you? Because you are a man, a courageous man.

You've been flirting, you and Shelly, for what seems like months but has only been two weeks, flirting like you shared child already and just the formality of fucking was all that was left. You were intrigued by her love of all things British and she by your sense of humour. You like her long legs, she likes your blonde hair. You'd like to taste her lips, the ones that seem so supple and pink when she laughs at your jokes or raves about Piccadilly Circus, and you'd like to show her that your own lips know a thing or two about massage therapy and pulsating circulation. You big strong brave courageous man. You did, you asked her out.

Because as much as you think she's a goddess and as much as you think she thinks you're not too bad yourself, you fear rejection like no other thing. If you asked a psychiatrist he'd say you were either obviously abandoned by your mother as a child or beaten by your father for bad grades, both of which are not true, but you even used to be afraid of using the phone, for the love of god, for fear that the receiver of your call would berate you and ultimately reject you. It doesn't make sense, once when you were nine a bee landed on your arm and you could actually see his motherfucking stinger winking in the sun, and you were not as afraid as you were just now when you said, So, Shelly, you want to go get some pizza Friday?

Done wizzing? Good, shake that bad boy, tuck him away, and proceed with alacrity to the sinks and wash your hands, for now you must go back up to work, where you file and Shelly files and Ned files when he isn't bothering Juanita the receptionist who thinks summer interns are a waste of time, you must go back up to work and do your utmost to ignore Shelly for a while, so that she won't think your some kind of possessive geek who at the first "yes" wants to get married, throw a chastity belt on her, and lock in her a room with a years worth of darning and a couple of bonbons. After all, brave guys are cool guys.

You're at the sink, you're washing your hands, you're really getting them soapy and washing them as thoroughly as you can, the water is exactly the right temperature and the suds have exactly the right consistency and the smell is exactly the smell of clean, the smell of clean hands, the kind of smell you don't mind catching a whiff of when your hand passes by your nose en route to your hair for a cool-guy brush to the side or to your temples for one of those I'm so stressed messages, that shows you're working your sorry intern ass off. You're really washing your hands, and thinking about turning up the heat a little bit because you're such a man, maybe just up the heat and see how much you can stand- probably a lot, man.

So you put one hand palm-down in the sink and with the other turn the heat just a pinch and it heats immediately, you wish they had that kind of response in the dorm, wouldn't it be nice if you could have this bathroom with it's three urinals and four stalls to yourself instead of sharing one lone commode and a filthy shower with five other guys? But that's not going to happen- fantasize a bit, you and Shelly will hit it off brilliantly over the pizza, onion and hamburger, her favorite! and soon you will date, and soon you will live together, pooling your meager resources to get a place of your own which is in the ghetto yes and has lousy parking yes but, by god, has some of the best plumbing in the state!

What the hell is that on your hand?

You've turned your right hand palm-up again and somehow your contact lenses cloud and uncloud for a second and amidst the suds you see a familiar black shape, an outline, which is weird, because as familiar as it is, you don't recognize it, that is, you know it is something, know it's something that shouldn't be on your hand but you don't know what it is.

Your heart tells you before your brain does, and let that be a lesson to you soldier, your heart dumps approximately 7500 ccs of pure adrenalin into your stomach, making it knot and squeeze in a microsecond, and then the skin on your palm decides to ignore the slippery whisper of the suds and focus instead on the eight legs of the spider resting in your palm. Your heart has stopped, of course, save for one more gigantic thump which has surely ruptured the arteries in your arms and legs because you are frozen solid.

But then, for no reason you can discern immediately, your stomach unknots and your heart settles back into it's regular humdrum rhythm and your legs and arms get their feeling back and you realize as you stare at what god must have intended to look like the most evilest spider in the world in your hand that you are not the least bit afraid of this, not at all, despite having for most of your life been terrified of spiders, jumping up on chairs like a little girl, actually one time pulling your car over to the side of the road to shoo a tiny little white spider off the passenger seat into a nearby park. They used to make you sweat, used to make you giggle uncontrollably, you couldn't form complete sentences, you could be given the choice between touching a spider with your finger or cutting off that finger with a spoon and you'd reply without hesitation, spoon, please. But now, it's like you've got a spider in your hand and yeah it looks deadly and sure its looks poisonous and and fine it could eat you in one bite and okay the legs are sharp looking and black and shiny and its abdomen is breathing in a menacing way and admittedly in any second it could race up your arm at infinite spider speed into your shirt and rip your guts from your belly with its demonic spider teeth, but it's like, you know, no big deal.

Hey? Why not eat the spider?

And as soon as the idea pops into your head you know with the certainty that build the pyramids and the great wall of China and the cath‚dral de Notre Dame de Paris that you will. You have to! You thought it up, and since you're so brave so much so that you just asked Shelly freaking Johnson out for the love of god and his angels, you have to eat the spider. Think about it- you would never do anything more brave than that in your entire life, eat the very evil creature which has tormented you your entire life, that would be even braver than the time you put rubbing alcohol on your open blisters on your feet to jump-start the healing process and while the pain was so intense you actually got a cramp in your arm, you still stuck a finger in the wound and made sure all of the parts were thoroughly cleaned. Remember that? You bit a hole in your wallet, the pain was so intense, but that would be like kissing the back of your hand compared to eating this here spider.

Of course, the spider might have other plans, so you've got to choose your strategy. Slowly slowly move your hand to your mouth, so as to not disturb the spider, to trick it into your gullet, or a quick snap of your hand, swallow that bad boy before he has chance to react?

You cannot believe at all that your are actually contemplating this.

You realize quickly that although you are now free to move your entire right side of your body has not moved for some time, nor have your eyes blinked, and nor, even though you're perfectly cool with having this veritable Satan of an insect in the palm of your sudsy hand, you haven't breathed in at least a whole minute, either.

Once when you were seven you tried to find out how long you could stand on one foot, seriously, not just hop up and down like some spazmoid, but stand calmly on one foot, no resting on the wall, no eating ice cream, no swaying back and forth like it was windy, but stand there calmly on one foot with the other one tucked neatly behind your butt and- oh my god you're snapping your hand towards your mouth.

You've always been an impulsive little shit and you've now just smacked your hand to your mouth with a wet slap and popped exactly fifty-percent of that spider between your lips, because as fast as you might have thought your were the spider had enough time to get halfway-off your palm so instead of just tossing him down your throat like you planned with no more work for it you've got the damn thing trapped halfway in and it is wriggling between your lips! Oh my god, your tongue, your actual real honest-to-goodness real actual tongue just snaked out and scooped that spider into your mouth and- geez, no, oh,my freaking god no, your teeth are actually crushing the spider's body between them and you can feel, holy shit, actually feel the legs squirming against the inside of your cheek, you are insane, this is not only the bravest but the craziest thing you have or will have ever done in your life, you are chewing on a live spider and your eyes are wide open and you are staring at your jaw in the mirror and you just about can't stand it but there's even one of those little needle legs sticking out of the corner of your mouth!

And then you swallow!

And then the taste of the soap smacks the back of your throat and fills your nose and makes your tongue swell, and you're fit to gag, you said it was a good smell but on your hands not in your mouth, and just as you are about to lean down to spit or suck some water form the faucet you have a sudden thought- what if the spider is still alive, and crawls up and pops out of your mouth? What would you do, if you literally watched a spider the size of your palm, which is large, literally crawl up and over your tongue and literally dash down your chin and into you shirt? Doesn't matter how many times you've been to the bathroom today, you would piss yourself like scared puppy dog and go into such convulsions that you'd end up biting your own ear.

So there you are, leaned over the sink with that awful soap taste in your mouth, burning your tongue, every tiny bit of cheek and palate in your mouth where the spider touched it on fire, and you can't even take a drink for fear that the spider will reanimate and leap from your mouth and freak your shit out.

You slowly close your eyes and count to ten, and tell yourself, that yes, in fact, you have just eaten a live spider whole with your mouth and teeth and tongue and throat, and now, stomach, the stomach's the key, once that bad boy hit those gastric juices his days were numbered, and if he was able to escape from that, you wouldn't want him in there anyway.

Keeping your teeth locked tight, you slowly part your lips. Not bad. Okay, there's a tiny piece of leg stuck to one tooth, a biscupid, but just a piece, not the sucker's arm reaching through to pry your jaw open. You pause, trying not to gag on the soap which somehow is getting worse, and with your tongue lodged firmly in the back of your throat, open your teeth. You're close enough to the mirror to see your fillings, your caps, and a grain or two of mashed spider, which is pretty much the single most disgusting thing you have ever experienced in your life.

Satisfied that he's defeated, you suck water, rinse, spit, suck water rinse, spit, repeat. Finally you swallow a long tepid draft, and then stand up straight, wiping your chin with the back of your hand- yup, you can smell the soap there, just like you thought you would.

You look at yourself in the mirror. Blonde hair, blue eyes, just ate a spider. Whole. Alive. Licked it in off your lips. Chewed it. Motherfucker.

You turn and step out of the bathroom, heading back to work, and decide to chat with Shelly now anyway. None of that macho bullshit for you, You're in control.

Eventually, although you don't know it now, you're going to ask her to marry you, and yes, it will be a frightening task. But brother, in terms of the bravest things you have or will have ever done, it doesn't even rank in the top ten.