On Spiders, part 2

“On candystripe legs the spiderman comes

Softly through the shadow of the evening sun

Stealing past the windows of the blissfully dead

Looking for the victim shivering in bed

Searching out fear in the gathering gloom and

Suddenly! 

A movement in the corner of the room! 

And there is nothing I can do 

When I realise with fright 

That the spiderman is having me for dinner tonight!”

~ ‘Lullaby’, by Robert Smith

from The Cure album “Disintegration”, 1989

Last week, you were treated to two terrifying tales of terrible terror involving me and dirty great spiders.  Spiders, as you’ll know, are the ninjas of the insect realm; by the time you know they are there, you may already be dead.  Please, don’t try and convince me that due to my greater size that they are not both scary and out to get me.  I’m sure that’s exactly what they want you (and me) to think.

On to the next sordid tales.  Please don’t send me your therapist’s bills.

3.  The weapons of warfare employed by my unpleasant enemies are varied.  Occasionally, the nasty little blighters don’t use subterfuge, but lay in wait where they know you’re going to be.  I returned from work very late one balmy night after dark, at a time I shared a home with my father.  He was home, but very likely settled for sleep by the time I pulled up in the car.  As I stepped up to the porch, I realised to my dismay that entering the house was going to prove impossible with the dinner-plate sized horror perched proudly in the middle of the front door.  Palpitations ensued when I even considered approaching the door, let alone walking through it.

My best idea was to yell out to Dad, but given the hour, I thought it too inconsiderate to the neighbours.  The back door was not an option without leaping over a few fences.  A brainwave hit - I could throw something at the waiting spider, which would either mash him or at the very least hit the door hard enough to wake my father.  I took off one of my shoes and hurled it from a dozen or so paces.

Shoes are not even vaguely aerodynamic so the intended target was very safe from my first effort.  I missed everything, although the shoe landed close enough to the door to make retrieving it out of the question.  I had another shoe and took another shot.  It hit the door but missed the spider.  A terrible thought occurred to me that perhaps the spider retreating only to resurface at an equally inopportune time, was not the most elegant of solutions.  After a few minutes, there was neither movement from the spider or the house, and I realised that I was not a quadruped and hence had exhausted my missiles.

Just as panic was rising to a point past my control, the door was answered by Dad.  He dispatched the huntsman in quick order.  Not a moment too soon.

4.  Everything grows bigger in the tropics.  This is especially the case with insects.  And spiders.  On staying with my brother during the North Queensland wet season, I often found a small amount of respite lying on the bed under the fan in the room I was staying in.  During a relaxing doze, I languidly opened my eyes only to see the single biggest huntsman (size: think of the biggest dinner plate you can possibly imagine) not just sitting on the wall adjacent to my head, but madly scurrying across it.  Seriously, this thing was the Mr Universe of spiders.  I swear it had muscles complete with pulsating veins.  By it’s size I could instantly see that it had obviously just dined on some poor soul’s brains and surely meant to make mine the next tasty course.

I attended to the involuntary scream-and-dance act that my body feels obliged to observe at times such as these.  It had the necessary effect; Mr Universe continued his scurrying to a vent in the wall that I had not noticed previously.  He squeezed his way through it to freedom in the damp air outside.  After fear and palpitations mostly subsided, I found myself seething at whichever house designer thought it wise to include arachnid escape hatches in the walls of the home.  What on Earth was the fool thinking?

Despite emptying half a can of insect spray on and around the vent, I still couldn’t bring myself to sleep in the room that night.  He was out there.  And he had my scent.

~ - ~ - ~

In more recent times, my family has encouraged me to form what has become an uneasy détente with the spiders around my home.  The big ones seem to stay away for the most part.  The smaller ones, like the garden spiders that form large intricate webs near the front door and the daddy-long-legs that usually take up residence in the corners of the bathroom keep the numbers of mozzies and small annoying flying bugs from reaching epidemic proportions.  So, as a rule, they can stay, as long as they keep their distance from me.  But get too close to where the water from the shower can flush them down the plughole, and all bets are off.