In Focus

I don’t know if it’s just me or are the spiders bad this year?

For several days, I would walk to my car and run into a spider web never knowing if the spider was attached. I’ve gotten better with spiders, but if they are near me or on me, they will die. The agreement in the house still stands, if I see a spider, it dies, otherwise it can live happily in my windows and control the flies and gnats.

As I continue my reindeer project, I frequently go to the garage to add a layer of polyurethane to the painted pieces. One particular day, the garage door was left open. I was heading out to an appointment when I saw a spider had made a web in the entire door frame. It was one of those big barn spiders. Nope. I headed to my appointment thinking I would take care of it when I got back. Well, the spider had moved and mom took care of the web...with her face. She walked right into it. The spider attempted to make a new web and was relocated to some nearby flowers.

Then there is this web by my back door. Another barn spider. I left that one be as it could take care of some bugs, preventing them from coming into the house. So it got a pass.

Recently, a spider has decided to make a web between the stairs on my back deck. I am constantly taking this massive web down so I can use my stairs. I think it finally gave up, as it built a web on the side of the stairs—out of the way.

A few days ago, I saw some movement by the back door. It wasn’t the barn spider, but a wolf spider. I swear it noticed that I saw it was there and took off. Those things are fast which adds to their creepiness. But that wasn’t the last I had seen of him.

Late one night around 10 p.m. I had gathered enough energy to go take a shower. The cats like to play in the bathtub and often move the shower curtain in the process. I pulled the shower curtain closed and hiding between the folds was a wolf spider. It was hard to miss with its long fuzzy legs and size being larger than a silver dollar. I instantly freaked out and backed up. The commotion caught the attention of several of the cats who joined me in the bathroom and stared at this eight-legged invader. No one made a move toward it.

I grabbed the closest chemical to me, my hairspray, and sprayed the heck out of this thing. It moved a little but it did not seem to phase it. Grabbing the next can, dry shampoo, I went at it again. This time the spider turned white from the product and fell down toward the ground and caught the edge of the shower curtain. I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a broom and attempted to squish it. It dodged and crawled inside the small hook opening. I pounded it on the ground and it finally came out, and was squashed. The cats just watched the entire episode and didn’t move except for King, apparently he doesn’t like spiders either. He was out the door when the spider first moved.

Well, I finally took my shower, but I was paranoid there were other spiders hiding somewhere the entire time.

Hopefully this spiderpocyalypse is over soon.