A dangerous, rare, blood-sucking disruption
After a few days of avoiding the garage because of the large
spider that had seemed to take up permanent residence there, I’d
learned to employ the kids for my go-to-the-garage needs. The
trouble was, The Girl was beginning to get tired of the
”
Please go get me the
…
”
game and The Boy likes spiders almost as much as I do, despite
the fact that he’d just finished a report on them for school, as
his chosen topic.
A dangerous, rare, blood-sucking disruption
After a few days of avoiding the garage because of the large spider that had seemed to take up permanent residence there, I’d learned to employ the kids for my go-to-the-garage needs. The trouble was, The Girl was beginning to get tired of the “Please go get me the…” game and The Boy likes spiders almost as much as I do, despite the fact that he’d just finished a report on them for school, as his chosen topic.
It was easy. If I wanted to sweep the kitchen floor, never mind that I was three feet from where the broom lives. I’d call one of The Kids to do my bidding.
I’d seen the spider a few days before, when I was putting the lawn mower away, out of the corner of my eye. I managed to suppress a squeal as I ran into the house, locking the door behind me. Apparently, I assumed that something that big had the capability to open a door. And why not? It did have eight legs, after all.
Once or twice, I got daring and would open the garage door just enough to throw the recycling into the bin from the safety of the threshold. That was as far as I’d go. I knew it was lying there in wait.
I’d told The Husband about it, but he just rolled his eyes. Didn’t he understand? There was a dangerous, rare, blood-sucking tarantula in there. What about the kids, you ask? I guess I never got that far into my thought process, which doesn’t really speak too well of my supposed protective mothering skills.
Meanwhile, the household was slowly grinding to a halt. The kitchen was running out of paper towels, the floor was in desperate need of mopping and I could have used the extra canned corn in the spare pantry, but there was no way that I was going to go in the garage.
The Husband had encountered it a few times. Just enough to marvel at it’s sheer size and then come back into the house, leaving the lurking predator in the dark.
Where was his Army warrior instinct to kill? Why was it failing him now? If there was ever a time to kill, this was it, in my opinion.
Sending The Boy into the garage wasn’t an option anymore since he was sorting recyclables and he discovered that he was under spider surveillance from about a foot away. But evidently, enough time had passed and he’d forgotten about it as he was taking out some trash. He opened the door and there it was. Right in front of him. This thing had no fear now. I was right. It was coming closer to getting into the house.
The Husband, either finally tired of all of the shenanigans, or just wanted to finally have some paper towels back in the kitchen so he didn’t have to dry his hands on his pants, got up to finally take care of business.
With him in the garage, the rest of us figured it was safe to come and investigate, too.
Why people crouch down to investigate something scary on the ground is beyond me, but there we all were, checking out the spider until The Boy said, “You know, some of those can jump.” We all jumped, too.
The Boy was sent to get a Tupperware bowl so The Husband could contain the Jumping Spider.
Watching this big man attempt to capture a very large spider in a very small bowl was worth the wait.
His normally fearless façade gave way to slight twitching and bobbing and weaving as if his opponent was Muhammad Ali. His first attempt failed as Jumpy (I named him) outsmarted him and dodged the lid enclosure with astonishing speed. The Husband, red-faced, made a second try with success this time. To punish me for my laughter, he paraded the imprisoned spider briefly through the house on his way out the front door, with a precariously balanced cover.
Our evicted friend found a new home across the street in the field, so life can resume as normal.
Unless, of course, as The Boy reminded me there’s a nest.
