Spider Bait

If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive. –American Quaker Saying

Word of my career as a spider mercenary has gotten out.

It was 11:45 pm on an ordinary Thursday night. Mr. Bug was in bed reading a book with his back to me. I was spooned up next to him and had been contentedly sleeping for about 45 minutes. The serenity suddenly became chaos as something painful woke me up. I reached down to the source of the discomfort and pulled an oddly crunchy ball from the back of my leg, just above the crease of the knee. What the!?! is all I could manage in my sleep induced stupor, my sluggish brain two steps behind my reflexes. I pulled my arm out from under the covers and dropped the strange object pinched between my thumb and forefinger into the bed in front of me. Mr. Bug turned around and found me fumbling around stupidly in the covers. Realization of what had happened dawned on me and I told Mr. Bug, I got bit by a spider! There's a spider in the bed!

Mr. Bug swung into action. He is nearly blind without his contacts or glasses, except he can see better to read without them and usually takes them off when he reads at night. This was the case tonight, but his nearsightedness was not a factor and his aim was accurate as he grabbed the top sheet and squished Mr. Hairier and Scarier into the bed. He then grabbed a wet wipe, cleaning up the crime scene before he went to dispose of the remains. He was gone kind of a long time, and when he got back into bed, I asked him what he had been doing. He said he'd been looking at the spider. You see, after my last spider bite, he'd done a good amount of research on Hobo Spiders and how to identify them. This was just another baby spider, without many identifying markings. He was a bit bigger than the other fellow, and a little bit darker. But really, it was hard to tell what kind of spider it was.

Still in bed, I closed my eyes, thinking of nothing but drifting back into blissful oblivion, but disjointed images started flashing in my mind. Drunk with sleep, the whole thing suddenly became hilarious. I staggered to the kitchen to get my camera and then dug the spider corpse out of the trash and posed him for a photo shoot. Laughing hysterically, I twisted myself like a contortionist to get a photo of the spot on the back of my leg where he bit me. It was just like the last one — a raised white welt and the skin around it was red and blotchy. In the sober light of day, I've opted not to post that photo. You're welcome.

After the photo op, Mr. Bug asked, what next? Snacks? TV? Both were very appealing, but owing to the late hour and work in the morning, I declined and climbed back into bed. And immediately climbed back out again. What if there was a whole colony of spiders lurking in there, out to avenge their brothers who had died at my hands? We pulled back the covers and shook them out. Mr. Bug made a careful inspection of the area between the headboard and the mattress for any signs of spiders or their webs. The coast was clear. And so I warily climbed back into bed. My mind was racing but after some prodding from my inner mother, I finally went back to sleep. In the morning, Mr. Bug informed me that he was itchy with a hundred imaginary spider bites.

This latest attack is rather alarming. Am I marked woman? Has my reputation as a mercenary put a target on me? I can't say for sure that they're Hobo Spiders {although one's imagination does go straight there}, but they certainly are an aggressive clan of house spiders. Biting someone while they're casually browsing blogs is a fairly hostile act. Biting someone while they're sleeping takes it to a whole new level. It is time to call in the big guns.