Then I think about how those little cellar bastards round-housed their legs at me and shook their webs and ate all my common house spiders, and the guilt starts to fade a bit.
A couple weeks ago, I had an altercation with a brown recluse. I don’t know who could be declared the actual winner of that encounter, because I never saw the little eight-legged monster that bit me, so I don’t know if he survived or not. I lived to make a full report about the incident, but not without injury.
WELL DAMMIT, THEY LOOKED LIKE BROWN RECLUSES
Let me fill you in on a little backstory. I run an animal rescue. Several years ago, I invested in some property specifically to house the rescued animals, with an old house in disrepair that was run-down but livable, perfect for the mission—so what if the dogs eat the drywall. We have to rip holes in it to update the wiring anyway.
I did find a couple of confirmed recluses and squashed them accordingly. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that tiny crawling things were constantly landing on my arms and legs, and burrowing around underneath my shirt. I itched, scratched, and pretty much came out of my skin for a few days. Then I started looking around, and realized the cobwebs that were growing back in the corners of my basement (I sweep them out every fall) looked different than the ones I’d seen there last summer. They were more disorganized, connected to each other, and a dingier color. And then I saw . . . oh, lord . . . I saw my poor little house spiders bound up in their own webs, dead and dying, being eaten by hordes of brown, leggy spiders with violin-looking spots on their backs.
I lost my mind.
GRAB THE RAID!
I sprayed. And I sprayed. And sprayed some more. The war was on. Those little brown devils didn’t take it lying down, either. They beat the air with their front legs. Shook their webs at me. Gotta give them that much: they went down swinging. But they went down nonetheless. Pretty soon, the basement and even a couple of rooms upstairs were littered with long-legged, brown spider corpses. I felt quite pleased with myself. Brown recluse—1 . RhondaK – 200+. I declared myself the winner.
I may never know the fate of the spider that bit me. I can only hope he backwashed a snout full of his own necrotizing venom and his face rotted off. Wherever he is, I hope he’s happy with the outcome of his actions. All those dead cellar spiders—his fault. I may have pulled the trigger, but he ordered the hit. Right? Surely I can beg some mercy based on that?
Today I am very sad viewing the carnage. And I'm already dreading mosquito season. Maybe I can go next door and borrow some of my neighbor’s house spiders. Looks kind of creepy over there--bound to be some eight-legged pest control hanging around somewhere.