As it is, this time of year means I'm constantly finding the little buggers (heh heh, get it? Little buggers? Okay, not funny. As you were) I keep finding them everywhere. In the garden I try to let them be as I know they play an important part in my whole organic gardening scheme. If I squish them I'm not going to harvest much bounty because the pest will get to it first. I just wish they wouldn't get quites so big while doing their job. Elbow length gloves come in handy to avoid contact, but they leave me with quite an odd tan line so it's one of those fun little win/lose situations.
I also keep finding them in the house. One in particular has taken up residence in my bedroom. Under my bed. How do I know this? Every night just as I'm about to retire for the evening he playfully runs across my pillow as I turn down the sheets and skitters behind the headboard. How do I know this spider is a he? I don't, but lets just pretend for the sake of my sanity that he is. I don't need the added stress of worrying about a Mother to be residing under my bed laying her eggs thankyouverymuch. He isn't a small spider by any means, which would make you think I'd be able to find him rather easily to squish him.
Alas, no.
After a half an hour or so of searching and finding nary a web nor even glimpsing one spindly little spider leg I will convince myself it's safe to go to bed.
On the couch.
Ha, okay I'm not that much of a wuss, I sleep in my bed like a big girl. I will admit that I position my pillow a tad, okay much lower, than my husbands. That way if Mr. Spider does decide to attack he will be more inclined to go after Nai first. I'll thank you kindly for not shattering my disillusions that spiders don't think rationally and that if they did, they'd be more inclined to go after the crazy lady who disturbs them every night and then hunts them and not the calm gentle man giant who stands there laughing at her.
Anywho... this brings me to last night. Do you know what I did last night?
I washed dishes.
Ha! You thought it was going to be something interesting didn't you? You were wrong. Neener neener! You should know by now my life is boring.
For what it's worth, I wash dishes by hand. I have a dishwasher. It comes in handy for storing my canning equipment in. I don't use it for actually washing dishes because for a family of this size I'd still have a full load left to wash after I loaded it up with as much as it can hold. In true hippie fashion I've decided it's a waste so it's used for storage instead. Yes, I know that's a little weird. I've come to terms with that.
Since I wash dishes by hand, I rarely dry them and put them away until the next time I go to wash some and I need the drain rack space. Sometimes I just pile the new ones on the old ones. I'm lazy like that.
Last night I ran a sink full of water and splashed an armful dishes in to soak while I put away the previous days dishes. Of course you know where this is going, don't you? As I picked up a glass that was upside down on the side of the rack a little friend ran out to greet me. He decided to greet me by giving me a heart attack, so I felt it was only fair to greet him in return by screaming and dropping the glass he was standing on.
I'm assuming this was insulting to poor Mr. Spider as he decided to jump mid fall and land squarely in the middle of my sink. Not the one full of soaking dishes. He's smarter than that and isn't going to make my life easier by accidentally drowning himself, he landed in the empty one I use for rinsing. I stared at him. He stared at me. My ten year old daughter who also happened to be in the kitchen as well divided her time by glancing back and forth between the two of us.
After a few seconds I realized he wasn't going to just disappear or curl up and die. I also couldn't finish dishes with him there since, you know... I was scared of him and all. Shuddup, I realize how silly that makes me sound. I inched to the right, he scampered to the left. I grabbed the spray nozzle. He made a jump for it just as I turned the water on full force. The stream hit him before he could clear the sink and knocked him back down. I kept at it, washing him down the drain.
Then I continued to spray water down the drain. I peered into the drain cautiously whle still spraying water down it. Overkill? I think not. My daughter tapped me on the arm, I jumped and just barely stopped myself from turning the nozzle on her. Hello! You don't startle someone who's already jumpy. It's not smart. Instead of soaking her, I continued letting the water stream into the sink instead. I did have enough sense to let it run out of the faucet instead of standing there holding the nozzle. How silly would that be?!I'm all about not looking silly if I can avoid it.
Finally I shut the water off and faced my daughter who asked me (in a slightly amused tone of voice, I think) "Have you ever read Charlotte's Web, Mom?" What a silly question, who hasn't read that book and so I looked at her and responded "Yeeeeaah... so?" I'm always this clever and witty after near death encounters with huge black spiders, just so you know. So Taylor takes my answer into consideration and asks me "It doesn't make you feel any empathy for them at all?" I look at her and reply "When did you learn the word empathy?"
Ha! No, just kidding. The kids pretty intelligent and probably has a larger vocabulary than I do. What I did say was this "I'm pretty sure the spider in that book wrote words in magical little webs. Then it died. This spider on the other hand has been outside our kitchen window for three days now until the storm drove it inside. All it did was eat bugs and leave a mess on the windowsill. Then it died".
She sighed, and rolled her eyes while shaking her head at me. She's going to make a great teenager someday. "Listen, Tay" I said "This one made webs too, but I've looked at them. Either the spider wasn't magical and couldn't form a letter let a lone a word to save his life, or he was drunk when he made his web and his words were illegible because of it" She cocked an eyebrow at me and asked "Did you just tell me you thought that spider got drunk? Regularly?!" My turn to roll MY eyes "Well duh, and like we need yet another alcoholic spider in this house. Good riddance, I say". She stared at me. I stared at her. She looked at me like I had lost my mind. I put my hands on my hips and stared back. Then I told her "Now, put away the rest of those dishes for me please, he might have kin lurking in there" and I walked out of the kitchen.
My poor children. They aren't even phased by my oddities anymore. They'll probably need therapy when they grow up. There was going to be a moral to this story. I forgot what it was supposed to be though. Spider's will do that to a person. The end.
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