Spider!

Every year, around this time, the spiders come out of the woodwork or the webs, whatever it is. The babies hatch and scuttle around the steps and hidden corners. Momma arrives too, and as for Dad - I suppose he has already been eaten.

During my lifetime I have cultivated a tolerance of spiders. I know on some commonsense level that spiders are good things to have around. They destroy the bugs I seriously hate, such as mosquitos and ticks. 

Although, I did find a butterfly and a ladybug in one web the other day - not cool.

Still, last night, when the LARGEST, FASTEST SPIDER IN THE WORLD emerged from some dark spot and ran across my kitchen floor ... well, let's just say there may have been shrieks, and leaps, and bashings of brooms. 

I don't like it when they have what my mother used to describe as "muscles," see. A Daddy Long Legs is tolerable, but a tarantula? There are glutes involved there. No thank you oh so very much.

It all makes me think of an October morning, one year ago. I was out on the front lawn with the neighbors and my daughter, waiting for the bus. One of the kids pointed up and said, "Hey, cool Halloween decoration!"

I looked up and saw - now, I live in a tall house, and the thing was just under the roof - the living grandmother of all spiders ever born. This thing was huge. And it had a huge home. I'm talking handspan here.

Shall I bump it up another level? Brace yourselves - it also had and egg sac. Nay, TWO egg sacs.

You're still awesome, though, Charlotte.

Suddenly I received a vision: of hundreds of spiders just like that one, crawling all over the grounds. And in the house. 

Did I say crawling? Allow me to self-edit. They would have been pounding around. There would have been audible footsteps involved. 

So just maybe I cried, and perhaps I forced my husband up the long ladder to get Mrs. Arachnid and her young and fling them far, far away.

Yes, I can put up with spiders. I will capture most with a cup and a flat sheet of paper and release them out into the wild. However, I won't do that with the muscular ones that took steroids. No, sirree.

(BTW, I just read a fantastic blogpost from my friend, Johanna Garth, here. If you are a writer you can't miss this one.