Sometimes They Are Still Alive

I am not so much on spiders. Living in Texas does mean that we have a pretty decent population of poisonous spiders like black widows and brown recluses. I've seen those around.  The occasional tarantula rings the doorbell every now and then. (I pretend not to see them. Big, hairy, slow and methodical. Blech.) The black widows and brown recluse spiders all get a nice healthy shot of Raid when they are seen.  I don't know if I own enough Raid to kill a tarantula and, really, we see them so rarely I don't know if I could bring myself to kill one. (NOTE: If one is ever seen in the house, however, we're going to move.)

Inside the house are wolf spiders. Hub has standing orders that the wolfies are to be either left alone or they are to participate in a catch and release program. They eat bugs. We don't have any....or maybe I should say we don't have any because of the wolf spiders.  While we've seen the rather large wolfie in the house before, they are generally not too big. I have spider catching apparatus ready at all times.  One clear plastic cup.  One cardboard coaster stolen from Chili's. Place cup over spider. Slide coaster under spider. Open door. Toss spider. Since they are harmless to people, I'm actually a little tiny bit fond of them. But just a little bit.

Last night I'm standing in the kitchen banging around trying to decide what I was going to cook for dinner. Something catches my eye.  In the corner of my cabinets is an unidentified spider the size of my palm.

I'm not a shrieker. I abandoned the Silly Girl a long time ago.  However, this massive, multi-colored spider elicited a very loud, "HOLY SHIT!" I squelched the urge to run from the room.

Hub wasn't home from work yet.  Kittie & friend were sleeping (yeah at 5:30 p.m.....teenagers can fall asleep at the drop of a dime) and that was probably a good thing because Kittie would have gotten a stick and polka dotted kerchif, packed some of her belongings and carried herself right out of the house never to be heard from again if she'd seen this monster.

Fortunately, my uncle was there to rescue me.  When he heard my exclamation of an obscene nature he wandered into the kitchen.  There he finds me standing in the middle of the room, staring catatonically at this unwelcome visitor. "Wow!" he says. "What kind of spider is that?"

"I don't know. I don't care. Kill it."

He walks over and bends down to look closer and Silly Girl arrives. "NO! Don't GET NEAR IT!"

With a chuckle he says, "Ok ok ok."

"K.I.L.L. the little bastard please!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Silly Girl is starting to get panicky. I start to dig around under the sink for a can of Raid.

"Don't spray that in the kitchen!" Uncle says....he grabs a dishtowel. (I have Good Dishtowels and Bad Dishtowels.  All the Bad Dishtowels have bleach spots. He wisely chose one of those.)  Folding it in half, he makes a grab for this huge spider.  Which then LEAPS FROM HIS GRASP with amazing speed.

Some girl screamed. It might have been me.

Said spider climbs right back to where it was before and this time Uncle doesn't miss. I can hear the disgusting 'pop' of death as he closes his fist around the portion of the towel containing what I'm assuming to now be spider parts.  He turns and hands me the towel.

I take it, prepared to shake what I can into the trash and immediately set Bad Dishtowel to soak in some bleach.  "Let's look at it!" Uncle says.  I open the towel.  (Why do spiders ball themselves up when they pass. It's gross.)  We both peer inside to examine what is left of the spider and THE FRACKING THING spreads it's legs and flips back over.

Some girl starts screaming again.  Same girl throws towel onto floor and starts jumping up and down on it.

Sometimes....they are still alive.  I am NOT at  peace with that.