A Spider in the Mist

So you know when you are walking outside and the dew is still on the grass and your hands are full and you aren’t quite awake yet and you are bare foot so you are trying to stay on the flag stone and not really looking where you are going?  And you have a sense you probably walked into a spider web, cause you feel something on your left arm.  But you are carrying things and still needed to get where you are going so you ignore the sensation of silk on your body.  It’s probably just a cob web any way, right?  I’m not much afraid of spiders, so it’s not really a big deal.

Did I mention what I was carrying was catch and release mice traps?  No?  Oh well let me back track a bit … my youngest daughter has the tiniest of field mouse occasionally in her room.  Again, it’s tiny only in that I’m not much afraid of little creepy crawly furry things as I am non plussed over eight legged creatures.  But I totally get they move real fast and you know there is the cellular memory of the medieval plague, so there is that.  But point being my hands were full with two brightly colored green mouse houses.  Unlike the poor moles who refused to leave my backyard despite ample warning and encouragement and who eventually met with quick and clean snap trap demise.  Because I’m opposed to putting poison out especially when you have children and pets.  But beyond that the slow poisons on the market today run a high risk of ending up in the food chain … hawk eats rat .. who needs that?  If you decided you have to exterminate something be quick about it, ye?  Quick and painless as possible.

But in this case, when relocating is a possibility, it’s always our first go-to plan.  So the redneck and I brought two dogs, two traps and our cell phones of course because you never know when there is a photo-op.  Right before we open the exterior door from the pool side entrance I turn to take a quick glance at my left bicep and don’t you know there’s a moving creature dangling from a string!  As the redneck puts it … “Babe, you should have seen your eyes!!!”  And I don’t doubt him at all, though admittedly he’s a bit more concerned about spiders than I am.  But it’s true, when you see something moving and crawling up quickly to get to you there’s a brief moment of OH MY GOD. 

“Can you help me out here?” I said in a quick but not overly hysterical shrill.  But by then the little lady had climbed up onto my arm and was settling herself and her package.  Because you see, the reason she was so intent on staying by my side was that she had just grabbed herself her next meal and by golly she was not about to let go of it.

A few flicks of a cell phone and we successfully coached the spider and her snack to the flagstone where we were standing.  I have to believe if you were an arachnophobic you wouldn’t be this far down the not-so-shaggy-dog-story, but I should mention it gets more graphic from here and there really isn’t any dharma worth disrupting your bliss so thanks for stopping by, you should move to the next click therapy distraction.

When I knelt down beside the bug and her bundle I saw that the meal was still alive.  Very much alive.  It’s a sad thing, no matter how you slice it.  I mean, I grew up watching Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom  and bad things happened on there, they did, but rarely did you sit and watch the slow death of whatever was good eats at the time.  But this spider was so dedicated to her prey that I became if not equally fascinated, sufficiently invested to watch.  Several minutes went by.  The redneck took umbrage to my insinuation that I found it hard to believe he ever had the patience to watch a spider for a good long time.  And he reminded me, with his voice rising ever so slightly (at least a notation fifth if not an octave) that he use to set by a crickbank for hours waiting for a bite and watched plenty of spiders in his day.

I watched for several minutes.  It’s a morbid fascination, I admit.  I could hear a clicking sound, or a buzzing sound.  But wings couldn’t be moving inside that tight mummified wrap.  On closer exam, I could see that the sound was coming from the mandibles of the creature in the death trap.  Seriously this was a sad thing.  But for the spider this was just what she had to do.  This was her version of door dash or cutthroat kitchen perhaps.  Okay, for your first sabotage you are going to get plucked out of your web and carried a great distance and thrown on the ground, how do you still prepare your meal .. GO you have 30 minutes!

In truth, it probably DID take her thirty minutes to devour her dinner.  I eventually had to get back on track and set up the neon green mouse traps.  So I picked up an old paper plate that was near the BBQ grill, and I scooped her and her moving meal up and carried her away to a safe place out of the traffic path.  I went by several more times during the course of the morning.  And she seemed quite happy with her new location and was still busy doing whatever it was that she was doing. 

The last time I saw her .. there was a dead black spider on the plate .. to say it probably had the life sucked out of it would have been most accurate.  I looked underneath the edge of the paper and saw the little tan spider tucked all up and satisfied.  At this point I realized she’d be happy to set up shop again right where I had put her.  But in truth, I thought it might be better to take her a bit further into the nature parts of our yard.  Which I did.  Apparently eating your mate is not uncommon among any/all of the spider varieties.  (Spider Cannibalism)  There’s a lot of theory about its ROI, Darwinian notions or Kinsey-esque kink explanations, but very little consensus other than perhaps that males tend to be smaller and food-like.

Were you wondering about the mouse in the little green house?  Well that thread of the web had a much happier ending all around .. or at least for now perhaps because we only ever know what the world looks like for this slice of the pie.  But the little (barely 2 inches) field mouse found the tiny cracker with organic peanut butter and seemed hardly phased that he was trapped inside.  After a brief family discussion we decided to release him in the wayback of our grounds.  Hoping that he’d find a more suitable location to dine.  And we ordered a new weather door strip on Amazon Prime.

It was late at night when we released the little fella.  You know how it is when the grass feels damp in the darkness and you don’t have any shoes on, and you are carrying a little dog, and a hot pack and your cell phone with a light in front of you trying not to trip or step on Russian thistle.  And hoping … as you duck under a branch that you don’t walk into another spider on a date from Tinder.