Along came a spider AGAIN

I'll admit it. I'm afraid of a great many things. Most of my fears involve people and the horrid things they're capable of.

But I'm also afraid of a spiders. I mentioned this in a recent post. Specifically, I'm afraid of black widows. Because they are creepy looking. And BECAUSE THEY CAN KILL YOU.

While I've been afraid of them since I was a kid, I'd never come face to little evil face with one until my aforementioned encounter with one in my laundry room a few months ago.

Well, it turns out that writing about that damn spider was a bad idea. Apparently the little asshole reads my blog and interpreted my post as a challenge. Because this past weekend, it showed up once again to taunt me.

It was Saturday and I was just on my way out to see a friend in Santa Monica. I walked out of my front door and felt compelled, for some reason, to look over to my right at the little patio area outside of our front window.

Immediately, my focus went to a large black spider, suspended from a web connected to a chair and our air conditioning unit.

This was the scene:



I held my breath and tiptoed over to the spider to get a closer look. There, on its abdomen, was the tell tale mark a black widow. A distinct red hourglass shape.

EEEP!

I ran back inside to grab the bottle of hairspray and use it to suffocate the little bugger with sticky goo. Or give its tiny hairs some much needed style and volume.

Devin was sitting on the couch when I ran through the door, and seeing him made me switch to damsel in distress mode. "Ohmigod ohmigod ohmigod," I whined while hopping from foot to foot like a toddler who needs to potty.

"What?"

"There's a black widow. Out there!"

Devin came outside with me to investigate.

"How do you know it's a black widow?"

"Because..." Then, "Do something!"

He leaned in closer and moved the blue chair. This stirred the apparently sleeping spider, causing it to run along its web and into the air conditioner.

Fantastic. I could've killed/styled the little shit by now if I'd just gone with the hairspray plan. But I decided to make it a team effort instead of seizing the opportunity. And now it was hiding in my air conditioner.

I was glad that I'd be gone the rest of the day and out of harm's way.

While I was out, Devin sprayed the air conditioner with a power washer and then sprayed a bunch of Raid inside for good measure.

When I got home later that night, he assured me the spider was dead. Although, much to my dissatisfaction, he could not produce a spider carcass as evidence of this fact.

Though still entirely creeped out, I rested easy that night.

The following day, I decided to do some further investigating into the spider situation. I went outside, knelt down, and peered inside the air conditioner. From my distance of about 5 feet away, I couldn't actually get a good look inside, but I wasn't about to get any closer. I stood up, put my hands on my hips and continued to stare at the A/C. I was willing to wait for the spider to make an appearance. It had the gaul to show it's ugly mug twice now. This meant war.

When the spider did not, as I'd envisioned, crawl out from inside the air conditioner and shake its little fist at me, I gave up.

But not before kicking the A/C to try to get its attention.

I went back inside my apartment to examine the A/C from the other side. I bent down and looked between the vents. While doing this I noticed, to my horror, a beam of light shining through. A hole! A small space. A connection to the outside world. A security breach!

The spider could've gone through that little space at any point in time. Perhaps, if it was smart, before Devin came after it with all of his weaponry.

Damn it!

I spent the next 10 minutes perched on the edge of my couch, researching black widow spiders on Wikipedia. Apparently, the deadly ones with the big butts and the red markings are the female of the species. And here I'd been calling it a "he."

I've been on the lookout for that little cunt ever since. She might be dead, but I'm not sure I buy it. She's far too sneaky. And she's out to get me.