Eight Arms to Hold You

So I've been finding a rather high number of spiders in my apartment this past while. Really, I live in a basement apartment, so what can I expect? I am generally ok with spiders, they don't give me the heebie jeebies, and I don't desire to squash them every time I see them.

I pretend that spiders know what I am saying to them. I tell them we have an agreement. You stay out of my way, and I'll stay out of yours. Don't scuttle across the living room floor when the lights are on, and don't creep up the legs of the bed to where I am sleeping. Up until last week, this understanding, as far as I was concerned, had been met.

Once or twice over the past few months I had spotted a huge mother of a spider zip along the floor when the lights were on. Big and black and hairy (ok, I am am making the hairy part up) and fast like lightening.

Maybe it looked like this. (There are too many spider pictures to choose from, and not enough time.) I'd say it was less brown and more black.

Anyways, point being, the big spider broke the rules, but since it quickly dashed under the bookshelf it was safe.

My crazy thinking makes me have weird notions. Some spiders, well I don't mind them at all. You know those smaller ones, with the yellowish bodies and spindly legs, and they generally stay up along the ceiling corners? They don't seem to want to bring any harm at all, so when I see them, I tell them to scoot off to where I can't see them. I don't mind sharing my living space with them.

But these big guys who are so obvious in their whereabouts...not so much. I had noticed a little yellow spindly spider had taken up residence in the bathroom. She had started a web in a corner beside my standing cupboard. I had a notion to be a homewrecker, but decided to let it be. Really, what was the harm? Two days later I notice that another spider - big ol' spider - had taken over the web. The little one was no where to be seen!!! What? Spider homicide?? I was irked that this big spider had bullied the little spider out of it's home OR that it killed it. Yikes. The world of the arachnids is a brutal one. I reflected in my heart and only found a stone cold answer. Yup. I did away with it. All I could think of was it was big and it was going to get me somehow.

Imagine my chagrin when the very next day I am blow drying my hair and I spotted an even bigger spider!!! This was the mother of all spiders!!!! You know on Harry Potter, the big spider Aragog...yeah, we're talking big here. Ok, obviously not that big. But a big spider on the terms of a house spider in Canada. It's body might have been equivalent to the length of a nickel, but more oblong. Ick. My cold heart told me what to do. All I could think about was this big ol' spider having free reign of my apartment and running all over. I took care of business.

I pulled aside my laundry basket, tissue in hand (that's right, I'm tough, I can handle the killings with a kleenex) and got to task. As I move the basket further to make sure that there wasn't another huge mofo waiting for me I see this wee little one come running out in a jagged little path.

My heart panged for a moment. What if I just killed it's mother!?!?!? This spider who really wasn't going to do me any harm who just lost it's life because I'm a nut has little babies who now have to grow up without a mom.

Uhhh...and then I remembered oh right, we're talking about spiders here. I don't think they have the same bond I have with my mom. And for Pete's sake, if there is one baby there is bound to be a hundred. Crap. That's a lot of spider killing coming my way.

Why can't they just listen and stay out of sight?