Creatures

Bryce and I have a new rule. When one of us (usually me) suddenly screams, the other person races for the vacuum cleaner while person number one (the screamer) stands guard and maintains a watch on the 8-legged monster to make sure we don't lose it. This is a very effective rule; it has risen organically over the last few months.

There's some big spiders here, but they're honestly not bigger than the huge ones that swarmed a house my mom and dad rented about 15 years ago when we were between houses. I remember a particularly huge black one hanging out on the wall above my sister's bed, and I remember that twice my poor brother had a spider crawl onto his shoulder: once while he was sitting on the couch and once while at the dining room table having dinner. That second time all I could do was look, point, and give silent screams and stutters.

We were always bug-bombing that house.

Twice, while making the bed in our current home, a spider has come out of the mass of blankets on the floor. Once it actually had the temerity to crawl ON TOP OF THE CLEAN SHEET I had just put on the bed. eeghhhh. There is new rationale to making our bed every morning: I don't want any blankets hanging off the bed to act as a ladder for any dang spiders.

They get in through the windows, which we leave cracked open during the day for moisture reasons. You might wonder how spiders can slip through screened windows. Well. Our windows have no screens. I have yet to see a screened window in New Zealand. Apparently only Australians need screens on their windows; everyone knows that THEY have the bugs to worry about.

Grossness Alert

It wasn't until pretty recently that I realized that when spiders die they shrivel up really, really small. So that dried scrunched up spider the size of a dime-- HUGE!

A few days ago I noticed a dead spider, about the size of a quarter, on our back porch. Then came the rains. It has been raining pretty much nonstop for 3 weeks (ok I lie, Met Service says there were 4 sunny days). Coming up the back porch steps today with laundry basket in hand, I did my habitual check at the big shriveled up spider to make sure it really was dead. Well, it was still dead-- but RECONSTITUTED!!! All that water in the air had plumped him right back up.

Proof-- that the spider was in fact huge during life. And thank goodness it died before making its way through a door or window. ugh!! (Bryce said it died when another bigger spider killed it--!)

I sacrificed my sandal and kicked the spider off the patio onto the dirt and leaves. I swear to you, it made a thud.