Rule #1: Always Check for Spiders

From my bed I can see 9 spiders hanging up along the corners of my celling (those are only the ones I can see, not the total number in my room. I’m sure there are more under the bed and behind the furniture, but I’m not about to go counting). They’re relatively small and look like the ones you’d see hanging out in the basement behind the dryer back in Ohio.  No big deal, they’re up there and I’m down here and they’re not about to come any closer.

That’s all fine and dandy until the spiders start getting a little bigger. And you’ve just taken off all your clothes while standing underneath it. And you’ve started to shower and turn around only to discover this spider. This spider which is hanging out above your clothes and towel and the door, a combination of two of the three you will need to leave the presence of the spider. In times like these spiders become a big deal. It was a very stressful shower, and now what I was looking forward to after spending the weekend sick and taking cold, miserable showers. [I told my sister it was there. She told my dad and he killed it. My mom was then sitting outside with the still twitching spider, picking it up and showing it to me. I stayed a few feet away at all times, telling her “de chan mai chop mang mom mack maaaaack!” (I really, reeeaaaaly don’t like spiders!) and making faces. She asked laughed questioned that I ‘didn’t like little spiders?’ (Fern translated). “Little?! That’s not little! It’s huge!” They then became very curious to know what spiders were like in America, to which I very unhappily described Ohio household and garden spiders.]

This picture does not do the spider justice to its size. The little one to the top right is about an inch wide. This guy is about four. This is as close as I could get + zoom (we have tall ceilings).

Another time it’s a problem is when you realize the sun has gone down and your clothes are still hanging outside. So you go to get them with your headlamp on and almost miss the gigantic spider web a few feet in front of your face and your clothes, that you somehow managed to miss in the daylight. And it has a thick, colorful spider sitting in its center, and you almost walk into it. Then it’s a little bit bigger deal.

Or your hiking and all 28 + instructors have to crawl underneath the spider web as to not disturb it. And the web is massive and you don’t even know how big the spider is or how close it might be lurking.

Or you have a choice between the western toilet and the squatty potty and you choose the western without first checking it out. You’re in an outdoor bathroom. You pull your pants down, sit, and realize there is an inch and a half long black and red spider sitting a foot away from your leg. Its web is attached to the trash bin, which you have to throw toilet paper in if you use it, which is a nice convenience where it’s available, as you finally don’t have to spray off and pull up your underwear on a now even wetter underside. 

Or when you go to put on your shoe, realize there is something else in it besides air, kick your shoe across the porch, and run screaming into the house and hide behind the door. In times like these, you’re actually laughing at your host sister, who is afraid of frogs… which happen to find shoes as superb temporary homes during the night. That was actually funny as hell. From her scream, I thought it must have been a giant spider, what else could be so scary? Nope, it’s a frog. I put it back in the pond.

So from now on, I’ve found out the best way to avoid and extremely unhappy confrontation with a spider is to check first. It still will result in seeing the spider, but will hopefully prevent from touching the spider, and the panic that ensues from even nearly touching it. Always check for spiders. Always. Before you get into bed, before you shower, before you take your clothes off the line, before you pick up your Frisbee (and unknowingly reach your hand through a spiders web, the yelp and fall across the floor). Rule #1: Always check for spiders.