The Art of Misunderstanding

Yesterday morning we found a GIGANTIC spider in our bathroom. And I don’t mean a simple spider of large proportions, I mean, a monster of a spider. Like, a spider so big and scary that we were too afraid to even take a picture of it. It was resting where the wall bends into the ceiling and divided its eight legs into four pairs. It was brown and black and covered with hair. Like a tarantula, only longer and skinnier. I have never before in my life seen a spider this big. And we really didn’t know what to do. I thought the best thing to do would be to capture it and throw it outside, mainly because the idea of killing it seemed so messy. It would be like killing a rodent with a rock; slow, cruel and dirty. But we also realized that if we pissed it off enough while trying to capture it, it might bite us. And we had no idea how venomous this spider was.

We searched the Internet but couldn’t find any information about it. There were no pictures or anything. So we decided that it was either us or him and one of us had to go. Of course it became my duty to dispose of the spider. I put on a hat and gloves, my glasses, shoes, and whatever other armor I could find, and assembled a weapon. I taped one of my flip-flops to the end of a broom and went into battle. I knew I had one shot at killing it because otherwise it would just get angry. And I was having horrifying visions of this giant spider jumping on my face. I went into the bathroom.

I swung at the spider as hard as I could but because of where he had positioned himself my flip-flop didn’t make a solid connection. I had only stunned him. In hopes of a second try I anxiously swung again but this time he was prepared. He leaned his body to the left and quickly tucked in his right legs, flinching in disbelief. At this point I knew I had failed. I had shown myself as a predator determined to kill him and he knew he had to try and survive. In one fast and graceful motion he spun a web to the ceiling and lowered himself down on a shelf where he could hide behind some bottles. I could see parts of his huge body and long legs from behind Bina’s Cutex and shampoo, and through the greenish tint of my Listerine. He was too big to hide but had successfully found cover.

Bina was frantically looking for some kind of bug spray but could only come up with a can of spray paint. Ironically, the only bottle of bug spray we had in the house was on that shelf, sheltering the bug! And so I used the spray paint. I figured that the paint fumes would stun the spider while the paint would harden and paralyze him. I started spraying the shelf and all of its contents with white spray paint, spastically trying to stop the monster and completely disregarding the mess I was making. But after spraying him in quick bursts, and then solidly for several seconds, the only thing I managed to do was turn him into a white spider. But he was getting sluggish, and I finally felt like I might have the upper hand.

Eventually, as the paint started to harden, the spider gave up and curled his long legs into his body. I used the flip-flop to slide his massive carcass off the shelf and into a bag, which I then placed under my foot and stomped on twice. It was a horrible end for that spider, and one that I hadn’t wanted to last that long, but it seemed necessary.

Later that morning our friend Tuan Anh came over and told us that the spider we battled was no threat. And in fact a really cool spider that is neither poisonous nor harmful in any way. It’s just big and ugly looking. This made us feel awful. What a typically ignorant thing to do to kill something you’re afraid of. We were so eager to get rid of the strange intruder that we didn’t really take the time to try and understand what it was. And misunderstandings seem to be in abundance here in Vietnam.

Later, we battled with the landlord over our deposit on the apartment. He was unaware of the spray paint spider fiasco, or any of the nails we put in the walls, and wasn’t the kind of guy to nitpick the little things. Instead he began adding up eight months worth of electricity bills, cable tv, and hot water. And when he told us we owed him $450 we were floored. We had come to collect our $200 deposit and were now in debt! In the end, after getting several other people involved, we came to an agreement that was far better for him than us, but we accepted our fate and were content with the simple feeling that at least he understood why we were so surprised at the charges. It would have been so much worse if we hadn’t involved our friends who could help us understand his perspective and help him understand ours. And in the end, what seems to make things better in any situation is just being able to understand the different perspectives at hand. Misunderstandings seem to be in abundance here in Vietnam.