Along Came A Spider

The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine!
Feels at each thread, and lives along the line.
–Alexander Pope

There I was, casually catching up on blogs, when I felt a little pin-prick on the knuckle of my right hand. My view of the area was obstructed by some overhanging papers and I couldn't see any cause for it, so I assumed that it was a mis-fire, a phantom pain.

{Crime Scene Recreation}

I massaged the knuckle absently while I read Laundry Hurts My Feelings. When I moved on to That Man Quilts?, I noticed that the pin-prick still stung and my knuckle felt a little bit tingly, almost anesthetized. So I took a closer look. There was a round, white welt where I'd felt the pin-prick and the skin around it was blotchy and red. So I started searching for the cause. I saw a hint of movement in my shuffle of papers, but the source eluded me. So I moved on to reading what AmyLouWho is up to today. It was then that I caught another whisper of movement amongst the clutter on my desk. This time there was no escape. You see, I have a hard-and-fast rule about spiders. When I'm in their house {outside} I let them be {unless it is a Black Widow, in which case the policy is, I do not deal with terrorists, and there is an immediate, terror-filled squishing}.

But a spider in my house is a different story. And this one made a very foolish mistake. He could have easily lived out his life without notice, concealed in the mess on my desk. But he drew unnecessary attention to himself and sealed his doom. Because when a spider comes into my house, the squishing is inevitable.

I must admit, that at first I was a little panicked about a spider bite. I hear that awful things happen if it is a Hobo Spider {also called Aggressive House Spiders}. I wondered what provoked this tiny white spider {presumably a baby} to bite me? I wasn't all up in his grill. I was minding my own business. That sounds like a pretty aggressive spider to me. But it is five hours later and I'm fine. Then again, symptoms of a Hobo Spider bite don't become serious for 24 hours. I should start feeling sick about the time Primary starts tomorrow.

In the interim, however, I have pondered the point of spiders. Why are there spiders? To keep the insect population in check, right? But their bad reputation precedes them. They are so skittery and I'm always afraid that one is going to jump on my hand as I try to squish it and it will have been a very poisonous spider and the bite will lead to my slow, agonizing death. None of the spiders around here are really that deadly. They'll just make you pretty sick. But when you hear about spiders in other parts of the world that can kill you with a glance, you tend to overreact. It helps to put things in perspective when I compared my close encounter of the minute size to recent run-ins Marg had with spiders of gigantic proportion. I think I'd pack up shop and move somewhere less dangerous. Because big or small, spiders are intimidating {to say the least} to nearly everyone. So if their sole purpose is to keep the insect population under control, then perhaps if there were no insects, then there would be no need for spiders. There. I've solved the problem in a matter of minutes. You're welcome, world. Now let's get on it.