At 6am this morning I was wandering blearily around the kitchen attempting to pull together breakfast. I glanced over near the door to the living room and saw the biggest spider in the world staring at me with a plotting look in its eye. "It's just a spider, it's just a spider..." I chanted to myself as I tiptoed around the kitchen trying to ignore it while keeping a sharp eye on its wherabouts (fortunately it was stationary) at the same time and hoping Mark would get out of the shower soon.* A thought struck; what if he has a ton of gigantic friends?! "Spiders are solitary, spiders are solitary..." Suddenly it was gone. Stifling the urge to run screaming from the house while tearing my clothes off and shaking my hair violently I went out the other door of the kitchen and around to find it in the living room. Okay, so far, so good. I went back into the kitchen where I found his nearest and dearest friend. Apparently, spiders are only territorial against those of their own kind. This was a completely different species of humungous spider. I edged around it to the stove, started the water boiling, realized that Mark had been in the shower for half an hour, and went sprinting to the bathroom to tell him he had to get out of there NOW and take care of the situation (and make sure he was not drowning in the bathtub covered in spider bites). He laughed and came out, gasping when he actually saw the gigantic beast realizing that I had not been panicing over nothing. The kitchen spider was gone. He went after the living room spider while I hunted for the other. Suddenly I heard "Oh good God!" and then "Roomba! Attack!" Apparently gigantic spider #1 had been carrying an egg sack which it dropped as soon as Mark touched it, sending hundreds of tiny spiders scampering in all directions. As the Roomba collected them, he found spider #2 which had gone out to help its friend, and then re-found and killed #1. All before the sun was up. *Sigh* I'm back.


*I am perfectly capable of taking care of spiders on my own. If I were home alone or in Seattle, the spider would be outside in a few shaky minutes. However, if Mark (or anyone else of either sex) is around and willing, I am more than happy to let him take care of it. He doesn't mind and I do. Plus, he kills them which is probably better (the thought of squashed spider is much worse to me than the thought of live spider).

posted by Anonymous @ 7:36 AM