Hourglass (musings on a definite non-Charlotte arachnid)

If you haven't read Jaymarie's post about her spider problems, run over there right away before reading the rest of this.

Read it? Good.

It brought to mind my own story about a black widow spider. Now, see, I have my mom to blame for this insane fear I have of black widows. When I was a child, she'd give me dire warnings about these beasties every week or so. She'd point out the full-color picture of one in the Time-Life "Backyard Nature" book I had, and intone ominously,

If you ever see one of those, run! It'll kill you if it bites you!!!

(Insert Tennessee-inflected accent in your reading of the above - i.e., "kill" becomes "keel," etc).

So I spent years in mortal terror of something I'd never even seen. Oh, sure, I'd seen them on TV shows and the like, but I'd never actually seen one live.

Not counting the captive monster held in the bug display at the Oregon Zoo (surrounded by a host of terrified crickets, all waiting to become her next meal), I've only seen two black widow spiders in the real world. That's two enough for me.

The first one was outside the gym building at Bethany Church in Long Beach when I was about 19 or 20. I know I was that young because Reverend Tim and Ian were still in high school. There was some sort of youth event going on, and some kids were talking about a, well, a black widow spider in a web on the south side of the building. Being a responsible adult (hah!), I went to check it out.

Big-ass black body, big-ass red hourglass symbol on her abdomen.

Yup, she's a black widow, all right.

Dispatching her involved the delicate use of a 20-pound cinderblock (carefully checked to make sure it didn't host any of her cousins in its open sections). Her web was just a few inches off the ground, so I simply held the cinderblock lengthwise over her den of iniquity, and let go.

Now, granted, I never saw her dead body. As Jaymarie can attest, they're tough little mothers, spawns of Satan himself... it would not have surprised me one tiny little bit to have found that cinderblock knocked out onto the sidewalk the next day, the Anticharlotte sitting astride it saying, "is that all you've got?"

No, beast, that ain't all I've got.

Fast forward about three or four years.

I was living at the famous Bethany Villa at 4170 E. Jacinto Way in Long Beach. After waiting patiently for months, I'd finally scored one of the coveted garages on the alley.

The garages had the old-fashioned single panel garage doors - the ones attached to springs at the sides that counterbalance them to make lifting not so difficult. Opening the door from the outside involved just pulling on the handle mounted in the door. Closing it was a simple matter: there was a small piece of nylon rope attached about a foot from the bottom edge of the door; one would simply pull it to bring the door down.

Now, the nylon rope is supposed to have a small pull handle attached to it to make it easier to grab. The pull handle would weigh the rope down, extending it down from the door itself putting it into easy reach. The pull rope on my garage door, however, lacked this little weight, meaning the rope itself was often curled back up on itself up against the doorframe of the garage door. In order to close the door, I'd have to stretch to reach up and grab the little pigtail of rope, and then pull.

I'd often notice that there seemed to be cobwebs on the rope. No big deal - there were cobwebs all over the place in that garage. Nothing to fear, nothing to be afraid of.


Until the one day, when I decided to look closely at the spot where the rope curled up against the door.



Nestled against the framing post of the door was the biggest, ugliest, blackest black widow spider I'd ever seen.


And I'd been putting my hand within inches of her for months.




Understandably shaken, I stared at her incredulously for probably five minutes. How could I kill her? (Because, when dealing with a black widow, there's no question that she has to be killed. The question is simply one of how).




I'd like to think that by the time I was 24 years old I was reasonably smart. I was a college graduate, a substitute teacher, nearly certified to teach in the state of California...

...but, as those of you who have gone up against the pure evil that is a black widow spider know intimately, reason flies out the window in the urge to smoke that mother.


And smoke her is exactly what I came to, in my twisted, stressed-out state. Smoke her like a Christmas ham.


I believe I did find some bug spray, but, knowing innately that these things eat that stuff for breakfast (just ask Jaymarie), I decided to add an extra...element to the mix.


The ancients considered that there were four main elements in the world. Earth, air, water, and



fire.


I rummaged around in my toolbox until I found a small Bic lighter left over from Dave Beatty's bachelor party, where Ian, Westslope and I all smoked stogies around Chad Carlson's pool.


I took aim with the Raid. I swear, at that very moment, she waved a leg at me, as if saying, "Bring it on, big boy!" Emboldened, I flicked the Bic, displaying that most man-like of skills: the mastery of fire.


I want to think that she felt some sort of animalistic fear as her eight eyes espied the flame, but being a creature of the Flames herself, I'm sure she wasn't worried.


Looking her square in her eyes, I screamed, "Take this, bitch!!!" and hit the nozzle on the Raid can.


A glorious blast of flame shot up against the web, melting it instantly. Her male counterpart, who had been hiding on the far edge of the web this entire time, disintegrated in a flurry of flailing limbs.


I stopped my ersatz flamethrower long enough to survey the damage.


She was still alive.


I shot again, directing the flames into the niche of the wood where she had holed up. I held the flame against her for almost five seconds, trying not to think about how dry the wood of the garage door was, and how I'd explain to Tom, the apartment manager, how I managed to burn down the building trying to kill a freakin' spider.


Finally, she dropped to the garage floor.


And was still alive.


I watched in fascination for a few seconds as her singed limbs stretched out for me, whatever eyes still functioning glaring at me with sheer hatred.


I considered this once-proud, evil creature - no longer displaying her fearsome demeanor, here she was, disarmed, damaged, laying on the garage floor: poisoned, burned, widowed.

I felt a surge of pity on her. Here she was, the Black Widow: most feared of the spider world. No namby-pamby Charlotte's Web arachnid was she. She was a warrior, feared by the strongest, smartest creature on earth: man. And here she was, laying helpless on the floor, but still trying to attack. Had I extended a bare finger at her I'm sure I would have received her last measure of evil.


So, instead of giving her the chance, I smushed her with my shoe.