On Spiders

This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.

Spiders are marvels of evolution. Spider silk is 5x stronger than steel. Spiders can jump many times their own body length. Spiders can fly hundreds of miles. If spiders were human sized they would run you down and smash you with a rolled up newspaper and then vomit acid on you and consume your squishy human meat juices. Without spiders we would be awash in flies. Spiders have like a billion eyes and 8 legs. Spiders are baller musicians.

By any metric a spider is way cooler than a velociraptor. Of course velociraptors aren’t as cool as velociraptors because they were only turkey sized and had feathers.

Spiders are also assholes.

This spider is an asshole.

I said it. You know it. Spiders are assholes.

I’m not saying this because I’m arachnaphobic. I am arachnophobic, but that’s not why I think spiders are assholes. Unlike most arachnophobes out there, I respect spiders and wish them no ill will. I just ask one thing. Stay out of my way. Just leave me alone.

Do spiders leave me alone? No, spiders do NOT leave me alone. Spiders are assholes.

Don’t believe me? Yeah, well last week a spider was hanging from the middle of the ceiling in my living room. It was right at chest height over my coffee table. It was a tiny spider. I’ve learned to cope with tiny spiders. So I said to the spider, “Hey spider, go away. There’s nothing here for you.” The spider ignored me. I walked away and returned a few minutes later. The spider was still there. “Hey asshole? You got a death wish? Go away!”

I go upstairs to change into fuzzy clothes and come down. The spider is still there. I walk up to the spider and say, “Hey, what are you, dead?” Yes, the spider was dead. There it was, hanging dead at 5 foot off the floor in my living room. This spider had extruded from it’s own body a length of silk no less than 700 times its own body length and then just died. To spite me. I have no doubt. The spider made it’s one final act on this earth a big “Screw you, humans.” Spiders are assholes.

You think this spider looks cool? This spider is an asshole.

Humans can be assholes to. I really appreciate it that my husband is always on call to remove spiders from my presence. I wish he’d just put them outside instead of squishing them, but phobics can’t be choosers. HOWEVER, he really needs to stop using MY shoes to smash them. Does he not understand that I now cannot touch that shoe until it has been bleached and subjected to a purification ritual involving dryer sheets, Twinkies, and recitations of portions of Alice’s Restaurant? Do you know what a bare-knuckels time it was when Hostess went bankrupt and we thought there wouldn’t be any more Twinkies? Would I be shoeless forever?

Only once in my life have I seriously threatened another human being and it was over a spider. One time on an 8th grade field trip one of my classmates told me there was a spider on the back side of a fossil I was holding. Now, I was a straight B- gym student, but on that day, in that moment, I may have set a world record for distance thrown for small pieces of shale harvested from the Eastern Oregon high desert. My peers chuckled as I screeched and did a crazy jig madly running my hands over my body and through my (3 foot long) hair to make sure there were no lingering spider bits on me. There was, in fact, no spider. Ha-ha what a clever joke.

All 5’2” and 100 pounds of 14 year old me stalked up to the offender, a 6’3” 200 pound football playing jokester. In a low voice I asked him, “Have you ever in your life been truly terrified? So scared you couldn’t think but just scream and scream and scream.”

He swallowed and said, “No.”

“Do that again,” I whispered, “and you will.”

He backed away.

I wish my death voice worked on spiders. Spiders are the majestic gods of not giving a flying flip.

Awe, it’s fuzzy. This spider is cute. No, this spider is an asshole.

I live in the Pacific Northwest, and have most of my life. I don’t know how it is other places, but spiders are a way of life here. They love to hang out in showers and drop down from the ceiling. They zip across the floors and hide behind your favorite stuffed animal. And wood piles. Gah! Don’t get me started about wood piles. I really like the blue bellied fence lizards that live in them but spiders and creepy-ass centipedes, no thank you. I see a wood pile and I AM OUT!

We don’t have any really dangerous spiders in the PNW. Contrary to what people will tell you, we do NOT have brown recluses. We do have Hobo spiders but they are not dangerous. Jumpy, big and scary, but not dangerous. Then there are the black widows. We have lots of black widows. Where I grew up in southern Oregon they were all over the place. As were the equally frightening looking false back widow spiders. Unless you’re a very small child who likes poking spiders, you’re not in any physical danger from black widows. They are not aggressive and while their bites can hurt, a lot, almost no one every dies from them.

All that said, just looking at a black widow spider can scar you for life. They are beings dredged from the 9th layer of the collective unconscious nightmare scape of horrible, horrible things. Their shiny, bulbous thoraxes and spindly razor like legs are the epitome of evil, evil, evil. They don’t even make webs like a proper spider. They make these horrible three dimensional dense nests of random web that clearly communicates that the spider that made this thing is bat-crap-insane and wants to torture you in your dreams. The egg sacs, oh gah, I’m gagging just typing this. The freakin’ peanut M&M sized egg sacks. What makes a freaking egg sac as big as if not bigger than itself?

Black Widow spiders. Mind-f@#$ assholes.

Asshole spider.

Daddy long legs - not actually spiders, but still, assholes. You know what I mean. They camp out in your shower and their long-long legs won’t wash all the way down the drain.

Spiders aren’t assholes because they bite. Actually, they rarely bite and most of those bumps you blame on spiders are almost certainly NOT spider bites. Spiders are assholes because they are spiders and spiders are assholes. Poke a hole in that logic.

A few weeks ago I was in the shower and noticed a spider crawling up the back wall of the shower. Here I am, naked, head full of soapy shampoo starring down this little darty jumping spider. The spider seems hell bent on heading right into the path of the water stream. If this happens it’s going to slip and fall in the water and roll right past my feet. There it will get stuck in the drain, because it’s a compact spider just big enough to resist going down the circle holes in my drain cover. I don’t want wet spider stuck in the drain right by my feet and I can’t really get out without getting soap in my eyes. So this is my solution. Tilt head back to rinse out soap carefully while keeping eyes open and on spider. Yell at spider every time it moves. “No, bad spider! Don’t go that way.” Spider freezes for a moment. Spider starts moving toward wetness. “No, don’t do it asshole!” Spider freezes. This continues for the time it takes to wash and condition my hair, because, goddammit, no asshole spider is ruining my conditioning routine.

I emerge from the shower. Both my son and husband are in the living room within easy hearing of my verbal war with the spider. “Hey, didn’t either one of you wonder why I as shouting in the shower?” They shrugged. Mom’s the kind of person who shouts in the shower. We don’t get up unless we hear a loud thump or she starts using middle names.

Spiders are assholes. So are my family.

*This post was originally a part of the now defunct Somnaplegic blog.