Yes, a spider. A very small one. She (I am assuming here) lives under the edge of the bathroom scale. That should tell you how often we look at our weight around here. She has spun a web so fine and small that you cannot see it. I only know it's there because I see her sitting on it seemingly suspended in the air just above the tiles on the floor.
This is in the water closet. Allow me to digress a moment. In case you do not know what that term means, it refers to a small room, the size of a clothes closet (a small walk-in one) where the toilet resides. There is a door on that little room in the corner of the master bathroom. It affords one privacy, of a sort. Well, I suppose it would if it was soundproof. Which it isn't.
But this is about the spider. She is a tiny thing. Just a spec with long, delicate, legs. She sits there and I imagine her looking at me while I sit there. We have conversations sometimes... in my mind, that is. I am not so daft as to speak to her out loud while sitting on the john.
Our conversations are simple. She is only a spider after all. I wonder what it is that creeps and crawls into the water closet that she survives on. And they would have to come close to that scale... which sits in a corner... under a set of low corner shelves. It's a place I can't imagine having any attraction even to a bug. But I am not a bug so how would I know. And I am not a spider, so who am I to tell her where to hunt?
I concern myself that there is a male spider who visits from time to time which would mean a lot of little, tiny, baby spiders sometime down the road.
I thought about removing her but she detects my movement toward her much too easily and scurries along her nest to safety under the edge of the scale. I could spray her with insecticide but that would feel like chemical warfare. And, in truth, she's causing no harm. Especially where she is.
So, I suppose she will stay there as long as she wishes. If spiders wish or have wants like that.
Or until Faye spots her and calls me in to murder her.
[957/958/827
A Night Unremembered
13 years ago
14 comments:
Spiders are a positive benefit in the house. I don't think I have ever got rid of one that was on the sidelines and not likely to get squished accidentally.
Do you know, they move their retinas and keep their lenses still to build up a picture of the environemnt. Isn't that cool?
I'm still a kid in the following respect, I like to get the bug spray and observe how those little suckers die. In Hong Kong, we have a big cockroach problem, and lizards in some old buildings like mine. Sorry, I have to kill them, I was taught to. My grandmother and my mother freak out if they spot them.
Michael.
Your writing is such fun. I love the tongue in cheek thing you pull off. Of course Michaels comment often serves as a counter point. Have you two considered writing something together.
I would have to join forces with the Fayes of the world...I think it may be a natural thing for most women to unite against spiders:>)
Great post.
Yea, Spider! And I'm countering Linda who joins forces with Faye...I say, don't kill it! Just because it has too many legs doesn't mean it's bad.
Jules - I did not know that. I do know they detect the tiniest movement, microscopic vibrations, of their webs. they somehow differentiate the movements made by a breeze from those made by an insect bumping into the web. they are incredible creatures.
B&B - They are useful also, as you say. They trap and kill pests. You just have to avoid the bites of some, especially the Brown Recluse.
Michael - We do have that role... defender of the women against the creepy crawly things. I do not kill lizards, however, I catch them and take them outside.
Linda - Thanks for the compliments. Hmmmm, Michael and I collaborating... I don't know, I am such a loner and have a reputation of "does not play well with others."
I don't quite understand why many freak out with spiders. I used to play with them with my brother and cousins. My older sister seems to find it odd. Hermit crabs are cool too, though I got bit twice in my hand (terribly painful, and you don't know when they'll release their grip).
When I was in Grade 5, I used to bookmark insects and some weird species of ants in my books. It's unfortunate that when I showed it to one of my classmates, she freaked out and tossed it somewhere. You know, it's rare, but I didn't kill it. I just found it already dead, and stuck it in my books. Not like it's gonna bite her.
Sometimes I wonder why girls should overreact.
(But large flying cockroaches sure are disgusting. They're filthy trash can raiders.)
Spider, spider on the wall
Don't you know a thing at all?
Don't you know the walls been plastered?
Don't you know anything you little
spider?
Ares - I was nailed by a hermit crab when I was 9 years old on a trip to the Keys. I was looking in at him in his shell he reached out with a claw and pinched me on my thumb next to the nail. Incredibly painful. A lesson in crab handling. You were obviously not the typical little girl. A good thing, I think. We should all try not to be typical.
#167Dad - LOL! Cute...
I'm not so scared of spiders and creepy crawlers while I'm awake, but the fear is that they may crawl over me while I'm sleeping.
My greatest fear regarding insects isn't that they bite me and I die, but that they should crawl inside one of my orifices, either while I lay sleeping or when I'm in the office (you know which one), and lay eggs inside of me. Hopefully someone who reads your blog is an entomologist and can assure me that it is unlikely at worst, and impossible at best.
I am going only on the knowledge that spiders prefer dark, damp places.
Well, I think you should consider naming her.
And then hire her to keep your house free from gnats and flies.
Tell Faye she's part of the family...like a watch dog...except she's a spider. It's worth a try anyway...
Oh...and I like your goatee...Sexy Baby!
:)
I was less than kind to one of the little creatures just now. No, I didn't kill it, it lives in the corner of the window in the kitchen, but overnight it had worked laboriously and made a web between the wall and my thermos flask. Sorry little spider, but my want for early morning coffee is greater than thyne.
To extrapolate a comment in your story Douglas, you would have been daft enough to talk to "her" had you not been sitting on the john...
One wonders...
AV
GB - Then I will not tell you about the 2" long Palmetto bugs (cockroaches) that would crawl on us while we slept when I was a child.
Sweet Cheeks - Faye does not understand the balance of nature as we do. Neither did my mother. Thanks for the compliment. I tried growing the rest of the beard out again and decided that the "Gabby Hayes" look wasn't for me.
AV - There are priorities... and the spider can always build a new web, and will.
So glad you didn't tell me. Unless you just meant you wouldn't elaborate. Still, camping has never been a big problem for me.
It did, that night
and the night after...
I moved the coffee pot.
AV
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