Spiders
I like spiders. I don’t feel affection for them, but I respect them. I don’t study them, but I appreciate them. Most people are creeped out by spiders, and I do sympathize: if I walk through a spider’s web, I totally spaz; and if I find a spider crawling on me, I flick it away without a second thought. Nonetheless, when I spy a spider from a safe distance of at least a few feet, I don’t feel compelled to kill it or to run away.
Unlike the insects that invade our homes, spiders tend to stay out of our way, building their own little homes invisibly in corners and rarely venturing into the open. They don’t steal food: they sustain themselves on the very crawly creatures that would otherwise enjoy rolling around in your potato salad. Once in a while, they even catch wasps and millipedes and other things that sting or bite. I guess what I’m saying is, spiders are silent, self-sufficient guardians of anywhere they take up residence. There are poisonous spiders, but these live mostly outdoors and only bother you if you bother them.
I’ve had three notable experiences with spiders in my current home. Shortly after Marcie and I first moved in, we noticed that the washrag holder in the shower-a clear, hollow plastic tube embedded in the opaque wall-had a brown smudge inside. The smudge slowly differentiated into eight legs and a segmented body, until it was apparent that a spider was…I dunno, coming out of hibernation? Or maybe it was hatching, but I thought most spiders were born in the hundreds and this one instead seemed to be developing like a fetus. Anyway, it eventually came to life and for a week or two, it would crawl around inside there while we showered. Eventually, it just disappeared, perhaps crawling behind the shower wall.
The second experience involved a small spider in the corner of our bathroom window. Around the same time that I noticed the spider, who would climb out of the window track and hang out until I blew into his/her web, we also had a problem with ants invading our kitchen. These were large black-brown ants, independent scavengers rather than the minute line-followers to which I’m more accustomed. They got into everything, even the closed and locked dishwasher. So I caught one in a cup and dropped it into the spider’s web.
The ant jerked energetically and easily escaped. So for my next little experiment, I trapped another ant in a medicine bottle and let it sit in my medicine cabinet for a couple of days. When I dropped the ant into the web this time, it was weak enough for the spider to subdue. Okay, yes, I see that this is creepy. I prefer to think of it as “amateur science” rather than “preparation for becoming a serial killer.”
My third experience is more mundane. A spider apparently had left her egg sack in the ceiling above my computer desk, because for a period of a couple of months, tiny wisps of spiders randomly would stream down on invisible strands of webbing, sometimes appearing an inch away from my glasses. Sometimes dropping into my hair or into food or drink. These spiders I squashed immediately (sometimes after jumping a foot into the air-like a wimpy version of The Matrix). I hope my actions have functioned as part of the cycle of natural selection: spiders who lay their eggs in places where their hatchlings bother people will have their genetic lineage cut short, thus rendering spiders as a group even more unobtrusive.
Oh, and I think it’s cool how they turn into butterflies.
Unlike the insects that invade our homes, spiders tend to stay out of our way, building their own little homes invisibly in corners and rarely venturing into the open. They don’t steal food: they sustain themselves on the very crawly creatures that would otherwise enjoy rolling around in your potato salad. Once in a while, they even catch wasps and millipedes and other things that sting or bite. I guess what I’m saying is, spiders are silent, self-sufficient guardians of anywhere they take up residence. There are poisonous spiders, but these live mostly outdoors and only bother you if you bother them.
I’ve had three notable experiences with spiders in my current home. Shortly after Marcie and I first moved in, we noticed that the washrag holder in the shower-a clear, hollow plastic tube embedded in the opaque wall-had a brown smudge inside. The smudge slowly differentiated into eight legs and a segmented body, until it was apparent that a spider was…I dunno, coming out of hibernation? Or maybe it was hatching, but I thought most spiders were born in the hundreds and this one instead seemed to be developing like a fetus. Anyway, it eventually came to life and for a week or two, it would crawl around inside there while we showered. Eventually, it just disappeared, perhaps crawling behind the shower wall.
The second experience involved a small spider in the corner of our bathroom window. Around the same time that I noticed the spider, who would climb out of the window track and hang out until I blew into his/her web, we also had a problem with ants invading our kitchen. These were large black-brown ants, independent scavengers rather than the minute line-followers to which I’m more accustomed. They got into everything, even the closed and locked dishwasher. So I caught one in a cup and dropped it into the spider’s web.
The ant jerked energetically and easily escaped. So for my next little experiment, I trapped another ant in a medicine bottle and let it sit in my medicine cabinet for a couple of days. When I dropped the ant into the web this time, it was weak enough for the spider to subdue. Okay, yes, I see that this is creepy. I prefer to think of it as “amateur science” rather than “preparation for becoming a serial killer.”
My third experience is more mundane. A spider apparently had left her egg sack in the ceiling above my computer desk, because for a period of a couple of months, tiny wisps of spiders randomly would stream down on invisible strands of webbing, sometimes appearing an inch away from my glasses. Sometimes dropping into my hair or into food or drink. These spiders I squashed immediately (sometimes after jumping a foot into the air-like a wimpy version of The Matrix). I hope my actions have functioned as part of the cycle of natural selection: spiders who lay their eggs in places where their hatchlings bother people will have their genetic lineage cut short, thus rendering spiders as a group even more unobtrusive.
Oh, and I think it’s cool how they turn into butterflies.