I Knew There Was A Reason We Eat So Much Spaghetti

Okay, since I'm now fully mostly recovered from the ordeal, I have a bit of a story to tell.

It starts with the dog; even though Charlie's role is small, I'm still totally blaming him. You see, he refuses to use his doggy door in the laundry room, which is up the other end of the house. So most of the time we have been leaving the back sliding door slightly open so he can come and go for toileting and general havoc-wreaking. This is important to remember - door's open. Got it?

So Talented Hubby and I, like many married technogeeks I guess, were last night surfing from our opposite sides of the room - he at the desk next to the back door, and me and the dining table. All of a sudden TH starts freaking out and pointing underneath the couch.

Folks, the grand-daddy of all spiders had just hopped into the room from the backyard.

Now, though between us we're totally useless when it comes to disposing of spiders, we have done it in the past. We usually use my stash of nice jars, cleaned from their previous use of holding spaghetti sauce (Aussies: Five Brothers brand makes the cutest jars!). I had grand plans of one day turning them into pantry storage but they seem to do just fine in their alternate role of gas chamber too, so you know, making lemonade out of lemons. Normally the process goes something like this:

• run screaming to the cupboard to get a jar.
• tiptoe back to the 'hot zone' like the floor is a lake of lava. If the spider happens to move at any point, we're toast.
• gingerly move whatever obstructions are in the way, sweating bullets during the process.
• inch closer to the spider; begin to whimper.
• like swallowing cough syrup, finally grow the kahunas to 'just do it' and slam down the open jar over the spider.
• freak out because now the spider is seriously agitated and thrashing up against the side of the glass. If he gets out, you just know he's gonna hunt you down and bite your eyeball or something.
• stare at the jar for twenty minutes wondering exactly how to work the next manoeuvre because it makes or breaks the whole plan.
• finally grab the jar lid and in one 'can't-think-about-the-stupidity-of-this' sweep, slide it under the mouth of the jar to enclose the spider. Screw it on.
• call the kids over (they've been instructed to go to their rooms and barricade the doors) to make fun of the trapped spider. Pretend we know what kind it is. It's always something Amazonian (never mind this is Australia!) and life-threatening.
• take the offending spider outside, along with a can of bug spray.
• gently unscrew the lid, spray about a quarter can of the spray inside the jar and slam the lid back down - all done in 1.4 seconds.
• wait for the spider to die
• throw the jar in the trash

Okay, so that's how it normally works out. It did not go this way last night.

Talented Hubby was given the jar-handling job. Bear in mind, we're talking a HUGE spider, probably a 6cm diametre including the legs, with a clear 3cm just in the body. He caught it alright, chopping off a few legs under the rim of the jar in the process. Meh.

Unfortunately, he also squished the egg sac.

That's right. Girl spider. More specifically, girl spider with babies.

The spider literally exploded babies all over the family room floor. And those suckers are FAST. I bolted for the kitchen, grabbed the Mortein and pretty much varnished the whole floor with a thick layer of the stuff. We got most of them (we hope the others tell legends about the scary House Monsters - we figure this will either scare them senseless ala "The Village" or create a multi-generational vendetta).

Then we surveyed the damage. Oh. My. Goodness. For a two metre stretch in all directions of ground zero there were millions of tiny black specks and one very big black speck (Mum). Adrenaline wearing off now that they were dead, Talented Hubby and I both started hyperventilating. Every few seconds we looked at each other in horror and got the shivers, both convinced we had baby spiders crawling into our ears or nose at every second.

What makes it harder to swallow is that this is the second time we've had an Exploding Spider Situation (ESS) in the last three weeks.

*SHUDDER*

In a sick way, and to borrow paraphrased words from a favourite childhood book/movie, "I guess it is a rather romantic way to die...for a spider." Laying your life on the line for your offspring? Being biologically engineered to vomit millions of babies at the moment of your demise? It's nature's little miracle.

Uh....sure. Whatever helps you sleep at night!