The Oh-So-Appropriate Death of a Brown Widow Spider on Halloween
Or…The Dragon had to kill an evil beast
Know thy enemy.
First and foremost rule of warfare: know thy enemy. For me, the enemy is spiders. (Also panthers with black fur.) Spiders cause a very real central nervous system reaction in me. Those of you who have followed this blog a long time may remember the day I discovered a mouse-sized wolf spider scurrying along the roof of the passenger side of my Saturn while I was driving. Needless to say, I did not continue driving for more than two or three seconds after emitting an ear-piercing scream in the spider’s general direction…
So today, imagine the neighbors’ entertainment at seeing me do the spider dance (in my Chariss costume because I’d just come from a book signing for Choices Meant for Kings) outside the new car…upon finding not just a freaking brown widow tucked in the passenger doorframe but also three of her egg sacs. I was beside myself. Now, keep in mind I didn’t realize she was a brown widow at first. All I knew was a pretty big spider was tucked up inside the frame with some webbing and these spiky looking sacs that I KNEW I’d seen before…somewhere…
Half a can of Raid later…
She came out of her hiding spot when I soaked her, the web and the eggs with Raid. That’s when I got a good look at the body and the striped legs. Evil, I tell you.
I thought it entirely appropriate for a Halloween blog. Evil spiders that are twice as potent as a black widow hanging out in my car, waiting for their egg sacs to open and release their millions of tiny evil babies into my vehicle is a horror movie in the making as far as I’m concerned. And I stopped it before it went into filming. Bwuahahahahaha.
Happy Halloween!
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: Halloween, spider, brown widow, Raid, fear, wolf spider
Or…The Dragon had to kill an evil beast
Know thy enemy.
First and foremost rule of warfare: know thy enemy. For me, the enemy is spiders. (Also panthers with black fur.) Spiders cause a very real central nervous system reaction in me. Those of you who have followed this blog a long time may remember the day I discovered a mouse-sized wolf spider scurrying along the roof of the passenger side of my Saturn while I was driving. Needless to say, I did not continue driving for more than two or three seconds after emitting an ear-piercing scream in the spider’s general direction…
So today, imagine the neighbors’ entertainment at seeing me do the spider dance (in my Chariss costume because I’d just come from a book signing for Choices Meant for Kings) outside the new car…upon finding not just a freaking brown widow tucked in the passenger doorframe but also three of her egg sacs. I was beside myself. Now, keep in mind I didn’t realize she was a brown widow at first. All I knew was a pretty big spider was tucked up inside the frame with some webbing and these spiky looking sacs that I KNEW I’d seen before…somewhere…Half a can of Raid later…
She came out of her hiding spot when I soaked her, the web and the eggs with Raid. That’s when I got a good look at the body and the striped legs. Evil, I tell you.
I thought it entirely appropriate for a Halloween blog. Evil spiders that are twice as potent as a black widow hanging out in my car, waiting for their egg sacs to open and release their millions of tiny evil babies into my vehicle is a horror movie in the making as far as I’m concerned. And I stopped it before it went into filming. Bwuahahahahaha.
Happy Halloween!
“Some days, you just want the dragon to win.”
Tags: Halloween, spider, brown widow, Raid, fear, wolf spider
Labels: brown widow, Halloween, spider
posted by Sandy Lender | 4:39 PM
2 Comments:
The Spider Dance! OMG! You are not the only one who does that dance. My Mom, my Aunt Treva and I call it the "heebie-jeebie dance." Aunt Treva kills spiders with her THUMB on the wall and then does the "Heebie-Jeebie Dance". When I lived in California, there were Black Widow Spiders. One crawled into the crib of my cousin Shannon's son, Bobby, and bit him up and down the arm. She ran him to the hospital ER thinking he broke his arm in the crib bars. Nope. X-rays came out ok. Drs were like, huh? Then a poisonous insect specialist happened to be there and said to test for Black Widow. Bingo! Bobby lived through it, and had some small scars where the bites were. Then Shannon was told, "This was a huge spider. It's probably still alive and in the crib. Find it and kill it!" The "fat part" was the size of a quarter, Shannon said. Alex slept with me after we did the "Massive Black Widow Sweep" before we went to bed. I was so happy to move back up north. It's too fricking cold up here for those! :) I'm glad you are such a warrior princess and rid the world of the evil scourge.
Laura :)
P.S. Congratulations on the scan results too! That's fabulous news!
Laura,
That story freaked me out. Holy cow, woman. You know, I heard of a child in Australia who picked up a funnelweb spider...the parents saw this as it was happening, thank God, because you have no time with those. Their venom is horrible.
As for your aunt, you couldn't pay me to touch a spider...eegads. There's that fear that as you approach it, it'll jump on you...and there your arm is exposed to it and it can run up your arm and bite you many times...UGH! I need to go shower to get the ooky feeling off me now.
Sandy Lender
"Some days, you just want the dragon to win."
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