Waking Up To Spiders

I have never really cared about spiders. I mean, some look pretty cool, and do some cool things, as long as they are behind glass, or on a TV documentary. When they are live and in my area....shudder! Here is AZ, we hear warnings about the Black Widow and Brown Recluse so much, I think we just tend to ignore them. I remember years ago, when I had an apartment over in the Sunnyslope area, our back door to the "yard area" had a window inset. This back door was located in the kitchen. I don't recall exactly what I was doing - getting silverware, maybe a cup from the cabinet - but I happened to turn to the window and there was a HUGE spider posing right in the middle! Of course, being the man I am, I dropped whatever I had in hand, screamed and went running to the other room, yelling for the Wife to come and get rid of it - preferably by killing it. She, of course, walks over and examines it. Determined it was a Wolf spider, and thus harmless pretty much to us, I calmed down. After all, he was outside, and there was no way I was letting anyone open that door. Several hours later, or overnight, that spider moved on, and I never saw it again.

My high school years, I recall seeing black Widows quite a bit. One of my chores was cleaning the garage - sweeping it out, etc. I would occasionally find one in a corner area that had some shovels or something we had not used in awhile. I would smash its guts as fast as possible, being as far as possible from it. Find them in our shed, too, when getting the mower out. Don't think I have ever seen a Brown Recluse (and don't want to) except on TV or at the Zoo.

Seems every year we end up getting a few of them Grandaddy Longlegs spiders in the house. Generally we leave them be in the ceiling corners, for a couple months, then swipe out the cobwebs and a little spider skeleton. Knowing they are not dangerous, and that if there are bugs they will help clear them out, I don't mind them. I will admit though, there have been a couple instances where one has dropped on me unexpectedly, or jaunted across my leg, and freaked me out.

This morning, dressed in my usual attire of shorts, I slid my legs in under the desk. Right into a spiderweb. I give myself credit, as I didn't scream. But I did jump back so fast the chair tipped over, and slid clear across the room. Be fore I knew it, broom was in hand. Needless to say, me brushing the web sent that Longlegs a-running.

But it still freaked me out. I think my heart is finally getting back to a regular rhythm now.

PeacE