Stumbled out of bed, into the shower, out of the shower. Got dressed. Stumbled into the kitchen, pulled the bacon out. Found a brown widow sitting in her web on my kitchen counter. Set the bacon down. Commenced panic attack.
First order of business: Tweet that shit.
Second: Take photos.
This is how I roll.
And then I stood there for 38 minutes weighing my options. That’s normal. Right?
Option 1:
Move out, leaving all my possessions behind, and never come back. Not really feasible. I have lots of stuff. I like my stuff. I don’t want to leave it behind. Also moving is a lot of work and I’m rather lazy.
Option 2:
Call the landlord and a) beg him to kill it and b) prove to him that brown widows not only exist but that spiders do, in fact, come in through windows. It’s way too early to have to deal with his bullshit. Also when he says he’ll be over in “ten minutes”, it usually translates to “next week sometime”.
Option 3:
Smash it. Impossible. I can’t smash spiders. If I use something like a hammer I miss (and break the counter), if I use my hand, I require heavy sedation and therapy to recover from the emotional trauma of feeling their body “pop” in my hand.
Option 4:
Set it on fire. Not only do I not need to come within six feet of the spider, but I also don’t need that plan to backfire resulting in a deadly, flaming spider running around the house and coming after me.
Option 5:
Vacuum that bitch up. Only that’s another plan I don’t need to backfire on me.
Option 6:
Hot glue. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost all sanity at this point.
Option 7:
Move out and never come back. Oh. Already covered that.
This was pretty much me:
Source: i.imgur.com via Bonnie on Pinterest
And that’s roughly what those 38 minutes looked like, interspersed with an occasional whine or whimper, or the kids running around screaming, “WE’RE ALL GANNA DIIIIEEEE!”
And then I spied a box of unopened Kleenex. Puffs, actually. And in a fit of sanity and bravery (that is probably an oxymoron) I grabbed the box and slammed it down on top of the spider. LIKE A DAMN NINJA.
And then I stood there for a few more minutes wondering if it was safe to peek.
It was. She was quite dead.
TAKE THAT, DEADLY WIDOW! I AM THE QUEEN OF SPIDER KILLING! I RULEZ! YEAH! YEAH!
And then I asked Margie to throw the tissue box away for me.
But in yet another fit of sanity and bravery, I envisioned yellow yarn (which is, apparently, the antithesis of squashed venomous spiders) and chanted, “Yellow yarn is really quite lovely,” and peeled the lid off (because she’d had the decency to be squished right on the part you tear away, rendering the rest of the box TOTALLY FINE) and threw it away. Like a damn ninja.
And then, just for good measure, I sprayed down the counter with disinfectant.
And you know what, my internet friends? All this before coffee.
As I said: You’re a total hero.
(Also, Puffs don’t disintegrate in the wash, making them superior to any other brand-name and off-brand paper tissue I have tried.)
Wow. Puffs are totally my hero.
I have totally sucked black widows up in my Dyson and left it running for at least five minutes to completely cover it in dust and debri.
A brown widow is an unmautre (can’t think of the proper word) widow. Or at least that what Shawn’s Dad and Uncle have told me, they were and are pest control people.
I’m glad you didn’t resort to hot glue, because you would have had to rip out your counter to get rid of the spider.
No brown widows are actually different. They are new to San Diego, though and I don’t know where else they’ve migrated to so maybe not your area.
And hot glue totally just peels off my counter. Is that weird? Heh.
Well, someone is doing much better today!
And, the hot glue could have been fun, like those ancient bugs encased in amber, only more modern and plasticy.
You really need one of those kid toys that vacuums up the bugs “for observation”. Then you could save it in there until someone even more Ninja-like could “observe” it for you.
You rock! That is a very ninja-like response to your very scary emergency.
I think your grand skillz in smashing the damn thing and still being able to use the tissues from the box need to be applauded.
i personally use flip flops. and then promptly throw the tainted shoes outside on the front porch for weeks until I forget that I used that particular pair to squish a bug. I like the inventiveness of the tissue box
okay…so i know someone whose daughter was bit by a black widow spider…i listened to that story with wide eyes of terror (daughter is fine, of course and is 16)
[...] tried helping us out on Science Day by providing a lovely brown widow in the kitchen for us. This was not my idea of good help, actually. Believe it or not. But we did get to observe her before we killed her. (The killing of brown widows [...]
Option 4 forced me to laugh, completely against my will since I am next to a sleeping baby and do not wish to wake him, and my inability to stop my crazy muffled laughing aroused the girls’ curiosity and they wandered over from their beds and asked me to read it to them. They also laughed uncontrollably. And none of this woke the baby, thankfully.
I have experience with Option 5 and it was good you didn’t use it. We once had a bagless vacuum cleaner and you could see the contents behind clear plastic and I would happily vacuum up spiders here and there around the house until one day, my sister pointed out to me that there were ENORMOUS spiders living inside the vacuum cleaner, all trapped, in a eat-or-be-eaten existence every time a new spider got sucked in. It gave me nightmares for weeks.