Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Invasion of the creepy crawlies

Last night, after viewing the eagerly awaited DVD of Hot Fuzz (you may recall that it was one of the things that lead to my post about entertainment thwarting) I took my beloved pooch out for one last potty run before going to bed. As I stood on the carport I happened to notice a rather large cobweb to my left. I shifted my gaze to see how far it came out over the walkway (it was at the top of the mini-staircase leading to the backyard) and that's when I saw it. A HUGE spider right smack in the middle of the web. Naturally my motion detector light in my car port is not working, so I can only base this description on the light from the yard, but counting it's legs it was about the size of a quarter and appeared to be yellow and brown. NOT GOOD!

Shuddering slightly to myself I took Duke back inside and fetched my roommate, a broom, and the bug spray and then we advanced on our enemy. Spare me the claptrap about how spiders help control the bug population, so do bats but I don't see anyone signing up to have a bat house in their backyard. (Actually, if I didn't live "in town" I would probably put up a bat house). Spiders are incredibly creepy, and this one looked dangerous. And incidentally when I took Duke out in the yard that afternoon there was no spider web. Huge spider, huge web, short amount of time.

But back to the hunt. I sprayed, the spider tumbled down its web and Fi swatted! Most of the web and the spider tumbled down into the flower bed. But we didn't see its corpse. The steps were well illuminated so we waited. I knocked down the rest of the web, and then Fi spotted it! It was trying to make its getaway across one of the stepping stones. Foolish creature! Had it stuck to the grass we would never have seen it. Fi sprang into action and whacked the life out of the vile wretch with the broom. I swept the debris into the grass and we returned to the comfort of our home.

4 comments:

Lady of the Woods said...

Poor Poor spider. So I see you share the same feelings about spiders as Ron has.....The only good spider is a dead spider.

Sounds like the kind of spider called the garden spider or writing spider as some like to call it. Did the web have a zig zag down the middle of it?

Librarian Who said...

I don't mind if spiders exist, just as long as they aren't in my house or spinning their webs where I could walk into them.
It was too dark to see if the web had a zig zag down the middle. In all likelihood it was an innocent creature, but it was foul too so it had to go!

Unknown said...

Poor spider! ::gasp:: It was infiltrating our space... naughty spider I say! And now.... dead spider. =D

Lady of the Woods said...

Itsy bitsy spiders climb up the water spout. Down came the rain and washed the spider out.
Out came Emily…….Spider dead end of story. :-o