Girls vs Spider

It's been a while since I've written anything, and what I'm about to write has no real depth to it or insight - but it's something that made me laugh and hopefully will bring a smile to your face too!
My friend, Emily, and I were in the car on our way to one of our favourite places to get a fruit shake because it was HOT. Really, really hot. We had just driven through the guard point at the beginning of the neighbourhood when all I hear is 'Aaaah Aaaaah, Oh oh oh, Aaaaaaaah' and the car starts to swerve towards the pavement and Emily is freaking out. I could see smoke in the sky and so I thought we were driving into a fire but the car was going straight for the pavement and so then I thought that she had lost control of the car somehow and was unable to steer it back into the middle of the road - I had no idea what was going on and she was just screaming, and then bang. We crash into the pavement. (I say crash - we didn't really crash the car but we hit it with some bump). Emily jumps out the car, and still completely unaware of what's going on, I jump out with her.
'There's a spider.' My initial thoughts were - 'Really? We crashed the car for a spider?' However, having seen the actual spider itself, I do understand. It really was huge, and creepy looking. It was cream, and black, and brown, and gross. This spider really was huge. And after some shudders and giggles, and Emily refusing to go anywhere near the car until the spider had been taken out of the car, I went to go and investigate. This spider was absolutely nowhere to be found. So after 15 minutes or so of standing by the side of the road in the scorching sun trying to find this spider, I concluded that he must have jumped out when we did. Emily wasn't so sure though and wasn't ready to drive the car again. I really wanted that fruit shake though and so after a little bit of persuasion, Emily got in the passenger seat and I got in the drivers seat. Now let me just say that not once since I've been in Thailand have I been allowed to, or really wanted to, drive our car. I love our car, I really do, but driving in Thailand I don't love. I turn the key in the ignition and Emily asks 'How good of a driver are you Lucy?' My answer being 'I failed the test and haven't driven in over 7 months. You're gonna have to help me.' Thankfully, I really didn't have to drive very far at all and I didn't come into contact with any other cars, and I parked it! Squint. But I still parked it! By this point I am almost positively certain that the spider is gone, and I can enjoy my fruit shake in peace. Which I did. We even had something to eat with it and sat and read our books in the air conditioning and it was quite lovely. We did keep making jokes whenever any men or teenage boys would walk by though and said that we should ask them to just make a quick scan of our car to make sure the spider wasn't there anymore, but we didn't actually ask any of them to do that. We're not that ridiculous...
After finishing our drinks and food and calming down a bit, we braved out to the car and Emily said she was alright to drive again. As soon as we got in the car though she told me that the whole time driving home I had to look at her feet. I had to make sure that the spider wasn't there and that it wasn't going to touch her feet because if it did, she'd go crazy. And so I did, I kept my eyes on her feet - but the spider must have known our tactics. 'I see it, I see it, it's still there!' and we pull over, and don't hit the pavement this time. Emily had seen it out of the corner of her eye and sure enough when we jumped out of the car, the spider had crawled into the back seat of the car. Neither of us wanted to touch it - I really cannot emphasize how creepy looking this spider was. It was horrible. We hadn't driven far from the restaurant and so Emily decided to run back and grab someone we had recognized from church, while I stayed put and watched that this spider didn't go anywhere. I felt ridiculous. Three of our car doors were standing wide open, we're pulled over to the side of the road and I'm standing there looking at the back floor of my car to make sure that the spider doesn't go out of my site while Emily runs to go and get a teenage boy to help us remove this spider. It felt like forever until they returned, it really was probably only 5 minutes but it still felt like a long time. The spider hadn't moved and the boy tried to swat it away with his flip flop, but the spider disappeared. After looking all over the car, and not seeing the spider, he concluded that the spider must have jumped out when the flip flop came towards him. As much as we'd like to have believed him, it just didn't seem probable. This spider was too cunning. We didn't want to make a fuss though so we nodded and let him walk back to get his coke. Once he was out of site, we opened up the car doors again and began looking some more for the spider. After a couple minutes, a Thai lady came out from the house we'd stopped in front of and starting asking what was going on, Emily explained that there was a spider in the car and that we were afraid of it. Then the lady shouted back to the house and out came 5 or 6 kids and they started looking in our car for this spider while we stood by and watched. It was the strangest thing. The woman shouted for them to go and get a broom and then they started trying to sweep the spider out. Other kids from the house came out to and started to watch and it was just so funny. I felt a little bit ridiculous but after about 10 minutes they struck gold and found the spider and got it out of car. So thankful for them and their help, we were able to drive safely home without any worries of creepy spiders crawling all over us.

P.S Just so you don't think I'm a complete wimp - I did cup a cockroach last night and didn't even make a slight squeal. Woopa!

Using the picture of Emily, the elephant and I because it resembles how big the spider was in comparison to us....