tarantula!!!!!

i'm not even kidding! my biggest fear came true. i saw a tarantula!!! a real live tarantula........and i'm not even exaggerating. i almost had a heart attack. the guys have taken in this stray cat (which i can't stand), that's quite playful and it loves playing with rather large bugs and some of them can be quite interesting so i like to peer over the side of the chair or look over at it and see what it's got this time. well last night i was sitting in my chair in front of our apt., reading and the cat started jumping around playing with something and i looked over the side of the chair to see a tarantula on the end of one of the guy's sandals being jumped at by the cat!!! i was alone at the house 'cause the guys were at our friend's place across the little street we live on and i couldn't speak. i could hardly breathe but i managed to say loud enough that they heard (thank goodness!!) "guys there's a tarantula over here and i'm gonna die!" i was so weak i could hardly stand and when they came running over i started to cry and one of the guys took me over to our friends house where they'd been visiting. our friend who lives there took one look at my face and ran to get me a cold glass of water (i'm not even sure at this point if he even knew what was up) and everyone else was just standing around in mild disbelief. i stopped crying and all i kept saying, over and over, was "i can't believe i just saw a tarantula!". nevermind that it was only about a foot from the chair i was sitting in! i calmed down a bit and after a while we went back over to our place. i sat in the house with shock remaining on my face and finally i felt ok enough to go to bed. i cried myself to sleep, woke up several times during the night and got up in the morning still in disbelief that i actually saw a tarantula.....heck, i still can't believe it! the guys say it was as big as the palm of my hand!! i thought my memory of it might be skewed a bit during all the commotion, but that's what i'd have guessed. i have no idea where the thing is now but i don't think it went far. when i asked where it went, the guy i live with, who shooed it away while i got out of there, pointed at the grassy area in front of our place. it'll be a few days before i can relax in front of our apartment again! it's a good thing for these guys that this didn't happen in my first 2 weeks here 'cause i was so homesick then that i'd have left for sure! wish me well in my last 11 days!!