I.
A week or so ago I walked into the bathroom to see a ENORMOUS spider in my bathtub. It was trying it’s 8 legged best to get out, but kept sliding down. Luckily, I had taken a shower the night before. I don’t like spiders. I’ve been fearing them for, oh… as long as I can remember. [side note: have you noticed that spiders are less scary when they are lower than you, like on the bottom of the tub, vs. up higher than you, like the corner of the shower, where they jump down upon your neck, bite you, and kill you dead?] So I did the smart thing.
“Baby Kitty! Pruuuu. Pruuuudence! Baby Kitty! Pruuuuuu!! Help me please!”
It took her about five minutes to amble in, because I had already fed her breakfast, so there was no need for her to pretend that she was obeying me.
“What?” her little kitty face expressed.
“That! Look! No, over here, in the bathtub.. no, not the sink, get over here… never mind, I’ll lift you. See? See the spider? Git it! Go git it!”
To her credit, Pru did stand on the edge of the tub and make her little hunting kitty yips. Then she jumped down into the tub, and proceeded to sit there watching the spider crawl all around her. I told her I wanted it “taken care of” by the time I got home from work.
When I got home, there was the spider, in the bathtub. He was very still, and looked a little peeked. But upon poking at him with a barrette, I found he was just a little worse for wear.
“Pru, what’s up with this? You were supposed to take care of him.”
“hmmm… oh, that’s Nigel. I’m keeping him. He’s fun.”
“You’ve named him Nigel?”
“Yup… we’re only making plans.. . for Nigel.”
Pru hopped down into the tub and started batting Nigel around a bit. I was actually starting to feel sorry for it. She was playing with her food. Brutal.
I came back later to find, unlike some cats, Pru does not eat bugs. She only beats them to death. Slowly. Over several hours. I gave Nigel a water burial.
II.
Currently, I have a little pet spider that lives on, not in, my car. She’s a tiny golden spider I have named Trixie. And she lives around the windshield. Every morning, when I am driving to work, I think that surely she has found somewhere safer to live. But no, she comes crawling out onto the glass, and waves a little leg at me. She’s learned not to get caught up there when I get on the freeway, however. That makes her curl up into a tight little ball. Poor thing. She gets under cover now, when I start to drive fast.
Trixie is free to live on my car, as long as she doesn’t come in, we are good. I kinda like saying “hi!” to her in the mornings.
In the next installment of Bugs Make a Fine Pet, we’ll talk about my three pet bees who were mysteriously beenapped from my porch. Never to return. I still miss them. After that, I’m done with the bugs because I don’t really like them very much.
I definately do not like bugs,Spiders especially. 10 years ago, I was living at my dad”s, the basement to be exact. As I went to go to bed, I pull the covers and there , in grand splendor, is a wood spider the size of my fist. I think I am still recovering from this episode. In today’s world, I tend to keeep spiders, as long as they are small, for they are great comatants againts other otherworldly insects that seem that they may belong in my home. I would think that you are ok having a spider living on your car, even if Pru has named it already.
Go Pru! I was a huge XTC freak, in my teen years, and Making Plans For Nigel, is one of my favorite XTC songs! I even wanted to change my name to Nigel, at one point.
What, there are hidden meanings in these posts. Inside jokes? Damn. I am probably only getting about 10% of Jodi’s wit.
Hi Jodi,
Thanks for linking to my blog. I share your fear of bugs. In fact, we found a centipede in the kitchen at my office on Monday and I almost peed my pants. It was horrible. I had to stand up on a chair just in case it was planning to crawl over to me and bite my feet or something. Ugh. (But Trixie sounds nice.)
Jodi, I’ve got like a Bazillion wasps living around my back yard, you’re more then welcome to have a few hundred of them for pets, I’ll ship ’em out to you =)
The strangest thing is, I’ve destroyed every hive I can find.. and instead of their numbers decreasing…they seem to be multiplying.. I wonder if they’ve called in reinforcements?
I don;t kill spiders, unless they are really massive in the tub! They are good luck you know.
Came by Rude C today 🙂
i’ve noticed that spiders are scarier when they’re above you. i first noticed this when i was taking a shower and noticed a spider on the ceiling move from the far away corner to DIRECTLY ABOVE MY HEAD. and then it started to descend. that freaked me the hell out.
and this other time, i was sitting on the couch and noticed a baby spider crawling on my arm. i casually brushed it off, not freaking in the slightest. then i noticed another one. then my mom had one crawling on her arm. we both looked up at the ceiling and saw a whole swarm/gaggle/horde of baby spiders repelling from the ceiling! eeek! itti bitti baby spiders falling from the ceiling are mighty scary.
loooon! my god! do you want to give me nightmares!
but spiders are GOOD! they eat the bad bugs.
oh, and finn eats the bugs round here. orko just stares at them with an occasional paw tap.