Cat jumped onto my lap for cuddles, then kinda freaked out. As I was depositing him back onto the floor, I saw the reason he’d freaked out — a HUGE hairy spider ….. ON MY COMPUTER DESK!!! a mere 30cm from my hand!
So I did what any mature parent would do, with their child sitting on the couch beside them…
I let out a blood curdling scream, bolted from the computer into the hallway doing that “OMG I’ve seen a spider” flailing dance! π
Then I stood there and composed myself while I considered what to do next.
After declaring we were moving home πΒ I realised I’d have to deal with the offending arachnid on my own…. since Mini is less scared of spiders than I am, but also less prepared to deal with the hairy bastards.
Luckily I knew where insect spray was – I’d bought 2 cans the other day, because I’d noticed things like our outdoor furniture getting quite webby (and we’ve only been here a month!) – so I’d planned to spray everything. So I got that.
By this stage the creepy bugger had climbed up my PC speaker. So I did a sensible pre-spray into the air away from Spidey – much like how you squirt a bit out of a syringe before injecting someone – to make sure (since it was a new can) it was going to be full potency for the spider-blasting spray…. and gave the spider a good spray.
Hairy bastard didn’t flinch!
Then he started creeping up the wall. So I moved the couch (didn’t want it to fall somewhere into the couch, and us have to burn the couch not knowing if it had died in there or not π) sprayed again…. and again….
One advantage of the spray I bought, unlike every other (even the supposedly “low irritant”) kinds, didn’t smell at all…. and didn’t make me cough. So that was a bonus. But I think that’s because it was a cheap Woolies one that wasn’t actually spraying anything irritant-worthy. MrAssholeSpider was literally dripping by now, and at least had stopped moving up the wall… but STILL WOULD NOT DIE!
The dripping was dangerously close to the powerboard that powers my PC, so I grabbed a hand towel that happened to be on the arm of the couch, and put that in the drop zone, and sprayed again.
FINALLY the spider must have drowned (rather than died from the insecticide) and dropped onto the towel. Once there was no more leg twitching, I used a broom handle to move the towel and its offending contents into the hallway, folded it up as best I could…. and hubs can deal with it when he gets home.
I’d put the kettle on before sitting down to my PC, so I asked Mini to make me a nice cup of tea to settle my nerves.
There are 2 coffee mugs (in our extensive collection) we have that would have been appropriate in this situation.
1).Β Has “Sereni.tea” on the front and “The absence of stress while drinking tea” on the inside rim.
2). The one Mini picked:
Good choice Mini…. good choice! π