Entertaining Spiders

Lest you get the wrong impression and think I find spiders to be at all entertaining, I can assure you that is not the case. Not at all. Nope. No way. Rather, I find them to be creepy multi-legged monsters that have absolutely NO DAMN BUSINESS being IN my house.

Outside? Well, that’s a whole new ballgame, and one that I will just leave alone. At least for this post. 

Anyway, we’ve been mucking out the living room of Chez Chaos. It hasn’t been done since Tam moved in and was long overdue even before she got here. Lots of things had piled up in corners, on level surfaces, and shoved under furniture. Eddies of piled crafting supplies mingled with magazines and books on various subjects. Some of it was there on purpose, most of it wasn’t.

Lots of dust, animal fur, and pieces of daily living that just found their own little piece of paradise and stayed put, well out of the reach of a dust mop, broom, or duster. Mainly because dust mops, brooms, and dusters aren’t used with much regularity around here. We’re a little on the casual side when it comes to being tidy.

Ok, I’m a slob and she puts up with me. Happy now?

Back to the story.

We’d been cleaning and moving things around for a couple days and were enjoying a quiet evening of rest and internet when what to my wondering eyes should appear, but FUCKING SPIDER-ZILLA racing across the floor. It stopped at a barrier of cords used to power the vacuum cleaner and seemed to be confused. I’m not sure why, after all, it was large enough to macramé the cords into a lovely hanging basket for my fern. But there it sat long enough for me to announce the presence of such a creature. I believe my exact verbiage was “HOLY SHIT!” I jumped up, stuffed my feet halfway into my sandals and proceeded to entertain the beast (as well as Tam and Li’l Red) with the song and dance of my people.

It sounded a lot like, “AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!” stomp. Stomp-stomp! AAAAYYYYYEEEE!!! STOMP!STOMP!STOMP!!!!! and looked even more ridiculous.

The little huge bastard had the gall to RUN TOWARD ME, avoid my lightning-fast feet, and duck under the entertainment cabinet. I would have had better luck if I’d been wearing better shoes; shoes that did not have straps flapping around my ankles just begging some long-legged arachnid to grab on and take a jog up my leg.

Yes. Despite all my efforts the spider got away clean while it, and my family, had a good laugh at my expense. However, even though the monster had taken cover under the cabinet, we three humans spent the next several minutes sitting around with eyeballs the size of ostrich eggs. My cat, on the other hand just sniffed and turned away as if saying, “Silly human, THAT’S not the way to treat a snack.”

It was after we’d all had a chance to relax and return to our regularly-scheduled activities of doing very little, that I happened to glance over to the wall above the entertainment cabinet. Up near the ceiling was the dreaded beast, just chilling and waiting for an encore.

I had to oblige, but this time I used a prop. The vacuum with the long attachment was our big finish.

I think.

Because the next day, while Most Minor Minion was over, and after he’d heard the story, he came up to me and said, “Wow, there’s another monster in the living room.”

“If it’s on the couch, then that’s no monster, that’s Li’l Red.”

“No, this one’s on the floor near the vacuum hose. It’s really big, too.”

“The hose?”

“No, Mom, not the hose.”

“Is it alive?”

“The hose?”

“No, Son, not the hose.”

“Oh, the spider. Yes, it’s most definitely alive.”

I approached with caution to find a rather spectacular specimen that was either the same size or a slightly larger version of the one I danced for the previous evening, I couldn’t quite tell. It looked a little rumpled and I wondered if it had spent the night rummaging around in the dust and other room detritus in the canister. But I didn’t care. I turned on the vacuum and… and… oh, god… The spider was so large, I heard AND FELT it tumble up the hose and land in the belly of the machine. At least this time I think it’s really dead, with all that banging around it did on the way in.

Believe me when I say, “fuuuuuuuck, that was gross”