I must confess, this is a post I never dreamed of writing.
For a start, it’s about spiders. Spoiler for all you arachnophobics out there – pictures below. Not big scary tarantulas, mind you. Just Mr & Mrs Skinny-Legs.
Secondly, it’s about the preservation of our eight-legged ‘friends’. Again, not a concept I have ever been passionate about.
Lastly, I am in a real dilemma. My (not so) hidden Buddhist traits are getting very feisty and, as we all know, non-violence is the best way to win…
So, I take you to a place that was once the subject of my most (in)famous blog post – my downstairs loo. About three weeks ago, I noticed that in the corners above the facility, like Frazier and Ali, were two skinny-legged friends, barely noticeable due to their size. No more then a ten pence piece. Resisting the urge to Dyson them, I left them there, a pair of arachnid bookends, just doing their best to live their lives.
This, in itself, is a quite a thing for me. I would say that, up until the age I had children, I was probably arachnophobic. I’d freeze when I saw a spider and the bigger and hairier it was, the more I would cry. Yes, I actually cried. Having kids sort of made me overcome ‘the fear’ and, with the help of a *certain* Peppa Pig episode, I toughened up and bucked up the courage to extend the Dyson hose to the arachnid in question and (while looking the other way and humming) suck it up.
This goes against all I truly believe – a deep down, secular, innate belief that no living thing should be killed by another.
Well, possibly wasps. I’m working on it.
Seriously, I believe that everything, bloody ugly and scary as it may be, deserves to have its life and is, at the end of the day, just trying to make its way in the world.
So, I allowed Mr & Mrs Skinny-Legs to stay put and, as I am the only one that seems to clean the house above the waist, nobody else even noticed they were there.
Then they grew. And grew. Their legs remained as spindly as ever but their bodies got fatter and I became more and more aware that, as I sat on the throne, they might leap onto my head and run up my face and tangle in my hair and…you get the picture.’
My *rugged* South African husband, who scoffs at my fear of bugs, “doesn’t like the skinny ones” and refused to relocate them to the garden. He told me he’d Dyson them. (I inwardly laughed at the fact that he still believes he actually hoovers). I did exclaim, ‘No!’ but actually felt relieved of the moral burden.
Needless to say, they are still there and then, today, I saw THIS:
Top left corner: Baby spiders in a sack.
Top right corner: Baby spiders everywhere.
Both, much skinnier again and one has had babies and the other has had a ball of babies. All ready to skitter over my house and, no doubt, be my full quota of spiders you swallow while you’re aslaaep *fingers in ears…lalalalalalala…can’t hear you…*
So, the question is,’What the Holy crap do I do now?’ I can’t Dyson BABIES! Neither do I want them pitty-pattying above my head while I catch up on Waitrose Weekend.
The Buddha says, ‘No.’ But the Dyson is just across the hall…