Spy-ders

They are not spIders, they are spYders. I feel like they are spying on me. All of a sudden they appear as if out of nowhere, and sometimes they travel in packs. As I approach, they freeze. Don't they have like 20 eyes or something? They're always watching, calculating, planning, and then, BAM, trying to escape. Don’t worry, I am not going to post a picture of a spider on here. Ew. I just thought since they have come up in recent tweets and posts that they deserved a special mention.

Seattle has spiders like this east coaster has never seen. I remember flies, crickets, grasshoppers, cicadas (ew, those damn 17 year cicadas and their shell litter,) and centipedes. Gross. Centipedes are gross and fast. I always had to have my Dad kill them. Unfortunately, he was rarely (ok, never) up at 1:00 in the morning when they would run across the floor of the basement. Spiders? Oh sure, we had spiders. But we did not have spyders. These west coast, wood spiders are huge. HUGE. Like, huge. The last place I lived was a house with a basement. Error upon error. These spyders came in every oraface they could find. The ones in the basement and garage, well, *gulp*. There was one in the bathtub once that almost ate my roommate. Seriously, I am totally, in no way, at all using hyperbole.

I've learned a lesson over the years that came in handy last night as dualing spiders spyed on me: always have a can of poison. Always. I sprayed those suckers, they plummeted off the wall to their death, and I sprayed them again.

During grad school I had a somewhat nice, first floor apartment. One Friday night, I came home and in the hallway (thankfully, outside of my apartment,) was a hole in the ceiling, or so it seemed. It was large, mostly round, and dark. Well, I knew it wasn't a hole and I also knew it was something very, very bad. I wasn't sure what to do. I knew it was a spider, I just didn't know exactly how big. It was high up, too high for me to get close to, which really, was ok. I went inside, closed my apartment door, and stared at the "hole" through my peephole. My neighbor across the hall came out of her apartment, and as she was locking her door, noticed the spider. I kid you not, she ducked. DUCKED! I know this because I was watching the events of the hallway unfold through my peephole. So, what does she do? She leaves!

I paced around, my heart racing. I knew I could not leave this situation unaddressed. I drove to the store. I purchased poison. I drove home. I dragged my chair within a few feet of the beast. I climbed on said chair, pointed, aimed, and fired. And then darted away to watch. Ladies and gentleman, I wish for the sake of arachnophobics everywhere that I was exaggerating the course of this night or the size of the spider. It was the largest I have ever seen and I hope to never relive this experience. As it was realizing its fate, it stretched out to demonstrate its full girth. It traveled a few feet along the wall to show off. I watched live, through my peephole, then live again. My best, honest, hand on the Bible, estimate is that its leg span was six inches. SIX INCHES. Now, that includes probably an inch of body but toe-to-toe, I would say six inches. SIX INCHES. Thankfully, I lived to tell the story.

And the moral is, say it with me folks: always have a can of poison!