Lurking monsters, redux

Remember the giant spiders that our house appears to be slightly invested with?

I was sitting on the floor in my room two nights ago, writing in my big heavy notebook, when I suddenly noticed a very fast-moving shadow out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head just quickly enough to see one of our giant spiders (about three inches in diameter, if you're wondering) sprinting across the floor to duck under my bed, passing about eight inches away from me.

Needless to say, I let out an involuntary squeal and leapt onto my bed in a desperate attempt not to let the thing crawl over me. Further thinking (in fact, some thinking, forget the "further") led to the idea that (a), trying to clobber the spider with something heavy might be the best course of action (seeing as there was no one else awake upon whom I could call for assistance), and (b), I had in my hand a big, heavy notebook. Joy was found in the coalescence of these two ideas, so I crouched down beside my bed and gently hovered my notebook over the spider's head, whereby it speedily retreated further under the bed before I could bring the weight down to squash it.

I quickly brought out a torch so that I could spy the beast, but it had hidden in the shadows and I was worried to find that I couldn't see where it had gone. So I perched on the bed, reading, and trying not to imagine the spider crawling up the wall behind me and onto my bed.

To my relief, about twenty minutes later a three-inch dark blur scurried out from under my bed. Wasting no time, I grabbed my big heavy notebook and swiftly battered the spider senseless, squashing it against my bedside table amid cries of "Die, puny spider!" I left it in its squished state, not wanting to do anything further with it, and in the morning was relieved to see that it hadn't moved. Even so, I was reluctant to step out of bed; scared that if I put my foot on the floor it would suddenly spring back to life again. Luckily it didn't. Still, I maintain that it wasn't unreasonable for me to be so cautious.

Yes, I get rather nervous around large spiders. Why do you ask?