Because They're Burning Bricks

Posted By Sika on November 8, 2007

Sitting here, writing in my journal by light coming from increasingly shorter (or decreasingly tall) candles, a spider, I assume attracted by the light and warmth, came near me. These spiders are creepy. They are nearly flat and big – about the size of the palm of my hand. They are flat enough that they hide in between the jamb and the door on the hinge side. They move fast too; the way they move is more like a lizard or something. They don’t scuttle: their movements are completely smooth (and did I mention creepy?). They freak me out like other spiders don’t. Logically, I like them better than the mosquitoes I assume they eat: at least the spiders don’t try to give me potentially deadly diseases.

But viscerally, that’s a different story. Pretty much every PCV I know has shivered when the subject of these spiders has come up. Oh yeah, talk about black or green mambos in your house and that’s scary; talk about eating mice on a stick and that’s gross; talk about the beetles bashing themselves against the ceiling and then dive bombing your face before they commit mass suicide and that’s annoying, but only these spiders are somehow wrong.

Then again, my dog just ate one of the creepy spiders and he isn’t dead yet (the puppy, not the spider who is quite dead although it wasn’t until it was already half eaten which was, need I say it, creepy), so maybe the spiders aren’t quite as creepy as I thought. Then again, the Barenaked Ladies taught me that you cause floods when you kill a spider and rainy season is almost here, so you never know . . .

Categories: Critters
Tags: Critters, escom