Basketball Vs. Fear

I leave my shoes - my basketball shoes that get damp with sweat - outside after I come home from an afternoon on the court. Sometimes I forget they are out there. Other times I just don't want to bring them in. My family appreciates this, though they've never had to realize how much so.

Today I went to get them. They were lying outside the garage door, and had been so since Saturday. In the shade, one sat on its sole with my ankle brace peaking out of it. The other rested on its side in the grass near some small bushes and the brick wall. As I leaned over to pick them up, I noticed a spider web... but no spider.

Where was this spider?, I wondered.
Could it have climbed in my shoe?
What kind of spider is it? Could it be poisonous? Aren't there poisonous spiders around here? Of course, there are, especially in summer. Remembering one of those stories - the ones your parents tell you when you're young to scare you into behaving or being safe - about how spiders, mostly Black Widows, like to hide in cool damp places in the summer, I was careful to pick up my shoes by their soles.

Stretching my arms out as far as I could push the shoes away from my body, I circled the house to the back patio, and threw them at the concrete. I picked one up by the toe and shook the brace out of it. No spider yet. I picked the other up. Still pushing the shoes away, I tried smacking them together.
I clicked their heels.
I banged the soles.
I turned each upside down smacking it against the concrete, but still no spider.

Determined to get it out of my shoe - or both shoes?! - I found a stick. The stick jabbed around for a minute in one shoe, then the other, and back to the other shoe for a moment. Still it came up with nothing.

The shoes are black on the outside with a white stripe, and black on the inside. They are very dark. I cannot see into the toe part of them.

I put the shoes inside the house at the front door. I think I'll wait an hour, or more, before I try sticking my feet in there.
But I'm ready to play basketball now.

...