The Spider Lair

Generally speaking, I am not freaked out about spiders. Great big black centipedes (or millipedes), now, that is a different story. There have been many spiders in my house and I have let most of them be, providing they don't get too close to me or get on my bed or furniture, or completely overtake my living space. They eat the other bugs, so I find them typically to be handy little helpers.

I have noticed recently that in my back yard and patio area, there has been an increase in spider webs. They are around my door, around my bedroom window and window a/c unit, around the patio furniture, pretty much all over. I didn't ride my bike for a week and they even made a web on that.

Well, today I went out in the back shed to dig out my old aquarium supplies and accessories (I bought an aquarium this week at a yard sale across the street), and I am normally pretty cautious out there when it gets warm because it is a perfect abode for spiders.

So you might imagine I wasn't entirely surprised at what I saw hanging in a messy little web in the small space between the wall of my house and the front wall of the backyard storage shed, looking just as plump and happy as can be. That's right! There, in plain view, was the biggest, fattest, scariest looking female black widow I have ever seen!

Unfortunately, for Antonia (I named the spider Antonia) I simply cannot have such a venomous spider that close to my bedroom window, where it might at anytime decide to come in and take a bite out of my supple flesh. Nor do I want her to become scared of one of my cats and take a bite out of them (cats bitten by black widow spiders have a 90% mortality rate). So I killed her.

At least, I think I killed her.

I sprayed her with poison and she dropped a little but then curled up and continued to hang in her web. I kept spraying her but she clung to her web tenaciously, glaring at me. I am also quite sure I heard obscenities being screamed at me in a tiny spider voice. I poked at her with the end of a broom handle in an attempt to smash her, but she dropped down and fell behind a bucket. I couldn't find her after that.

I'm scared that she survived and is going to crawl into my bedroom and take revenge.

Once my mom found three butterflies that she thought were dead and pinned them to the cork board in the bathroom with the rest of her collection. Well, they weren't dead, and somehow they got off of the pins and came into the living room and attacked her. I saw it with my own eyes.

The Black Widow is probably hiding out in a small, dark corner of The Spider Lair (AKA my backyard) developing an immunity to the poison I sprayed her with. Preparing to recover and return even stronger and more venomous than ever before! If I die, please be sure to tell the coroner not to dismiss the multiple spider bites he will no doubt find all over my body, as mere coincidence! Be sure he knows that I was killed by a black widow spider named Antonia.

Murdered in cold blood!