I’m having a spider problem.
The problem is that they seem to really like me. I’m not particularly scared of spiders, but they do have that pop-out-of-no-where-to-freak-you-out factor.
Normally, spiders just stick to ceilings and dark corners, but lately they’ve been stalking me.
All three of these things have happened in the last couple weeks.
1) I was cooking, standing at the stove and mixing marsala sauce when a spider dropped down two inches in front of my face, hanging on a web, wiggling all eight of his creepy legs at me. This also happened to be right over my marsala sauce. Eww. And it made me do one of those weird shudder/jump back/squeak things. I had to move the sauce out of the way and smush him when he landed on the stove. THANKFULLY he missed the burner by and inch or so, or I would have been scraping charred arachnid off my stove.
2) One cool and rainy Saturday we were burning some of the old, dead wood from our property (Yay for open burning season!). Because of the drizzle we were all wearing cowboy hats – possibly the greatest invention ever – and when I stepped inside to use the bathroom, guess what what dangling from the brim of my hat, right near my left ear? Yes. Excellent guess. A spider. Eight creepy legs WAY too close to my ear.
3) This was the worst. I was driving to town with my youngest, we were chatting about four-year-old things like why daddy is taller if mommy is older, when guess what dropped down from the rearview mirror? Should I stop asking you to guess since the answer is so obvious? A SPIDER. This one was beefy too. Why they have to spread all their legs out when they’re hanging on their little spidey string, I don’t know. But with his legs out he was about the size of a quarter. This was happening as I drove 70 mph on the highway.
I didn’t like him hanging a foot away from me in the car, but I figured once he dropped down to the floor he’d run away. Obligingly, he dropped lower until he reached the vents—which blew him straight towards me!
So the vents are blowing him toward me and I start blowing back because he’s right in front of the control knob for the air. And the spider starts flailing all eight legs around, apparently startled to find himself in the middle of the perfect storm. And Liam’s yelling from the back, “MOM! BIG SPIDER! RIGHT THERE! SWINGING CLOSE TO YOU! WATCH OUT!” which wasn’t helping.
(Before you picture me causing a huge traffic accident, you should know that our ‘highway’ is just a two lane road through the mountains were you are more likely to see deer or an eagle than another car. So I had slowed down considerably, but since there were no other cars to be seen, I hadn’t pulled over yet…)
Thankfully, Creepy McCreepins headed back up his sticky string to the rearview mirror. Since I was almost to town I decided just to keep going until there was some good parking lot to pull over into where I could kill the monster. Of course, right as I got into town the creature walked to the closest edge of the mirror and leapt off like some daredevil skydiver. (“MOMMY! LOOK! HE’S BACK! HE’S GONNA GET ON YOU! SPIDER! SPIDER! SPIDER!”)
I had been smart enough to turn off the vents before, but now the road turned to the right which swung the spider to the left, up very close to me again!
I did the blowing thing again, you know, because it worked so well the last time, and he ended up dropping onto my gearshift. When he climbed off the shifter and onto a flat part of the dash, his adventures ended in a pouncing wad of tissues. Which I then flung across the car while shuddering/making disgusted noises/being cheered on my my son.
So there you have it. You may come away from this with the idea that we just have a lot of spiders where I live. And I suppose we do, being surrounded by a bajillion acres of forest. But I’m really beginning to feel like it’s something more personal.
Oh no. As I write this I realize that even if this started out because spiders just really like me, I’ve now killed all three that got close. What if the rest of them start getting angry?
In honor of St. Patrick’s day, I leave you with this traditional Irish blessing:
May better things than spiders rain down on you this week.
I am not kidding you that JUST as I finished typing that blessing, a SPIDER crawled over the edge of my kitchen table straight for me.
Now I’ve killed four of them.
I may be a goner.
OMG. I cringed throughout this whole post. I’m terrified of bugs. Mind-numbingly terrified. I admire your self-control because I would’ve been dead if a spider was in the car with me. As it is, I’ve had a hornet caught halfway in my window that I had to try to ignore while driving down the city freeway. And another time there was a moth dive-bombing me. Both times I nearly drove off the road.
Oh no! A hornet is MUCH worse than a spider. That would be horrible. Did you want to put the window up all the way and crush it?
My husband drove through a swarm of bees once with his windows open. He had to pull over because DOZENS of bees had flown into the car. Gives me the creeps!
Dozens of bees? That’s horrifying!
The hornet’s wings and a few legs were caught between the window and the frame. So I was really hoping it’d blow apart with the speed I was going, but no. So I had someone squish it when I finally got to my destination after it had gone for a heck of a ride. Kinda felt bad for it (but not really).