Only a spider

So, being someone who is both utterly terrified of spiders and completely unable to kill anything at all, I found myself in a quandary a few days ago when I was doing some laundry and I saw a reasonably gigantic garden spider crouching in the corner of the doorway.  As I've got older I've managed to get myself past the immobile, frozen, screaming hysteria stage of arachnophobia and these days when I see a spider all that happens is that I feel a rush of nausea sweep over me, I start trembling and I usually run to someone else and make them make it go away.  This day, I was on my own.  Dun dun dunnnnnnnnnnnnn.

After about five minutes of standing completely still, swallowing hard, staring at it trying to work out if it was dead or alive it moved one leg fractionally, galvanising me into action.  (Namely, running with a strange, wriggling-with-fear kind of gait back into the house, closing the door and leaning heavily against it, panting).  What to do?  P was asleep, the dogs would be no help at all.  I couldn't just leave it there.  So I decided that I would have to try to pick it up and put it over the fence.  

Picked up dustpan and brush.  

Went back outside.  

Stared at spider.  

Stared at spider some more.

Reached towards spider with dustpan and brush.

Started to cry.

(Me, not the spider).

Realised that there was no possibility of ever being able to pick the damn thing up.  Knew I would have to put it out of my misery.

But then, how?  Squish or spray?  This is the question of course, that has been echoing down through the ages. Squishing, the ultimately kinder way to go, involves some degree of proximity with the creature.  Then, of course, there is always the chance that your shaking hands will cause you to miss, and then said creature has golden opportunity to jump on you, and eat you.  Spraying solves this problem.  One can simply spray, and then make a quick getaway before said creature has chance to jump on you and eat you.  But then one is left with the knowledge forevermore that one has poisoned an innocent creature and left it to die a slow and agonising death.  

Realising I wasn't getting anywhere I stared at the spider in an agony of indecision for another five minutes, reasonably sure that the spider was staring back at me in an equal agony of indecision (Do I make a run for it? Do I pretend I'm not here? Do I jump on her and eat her?)

In the end, realising that P would only be asleep for another two hours and I was running out of time, I opted for the lesser-known `spray then squish' option.  I would spray the spider just enough to make it move out of its awkward-for-squishing position in the corner of the doorway, and then I would squash it flat with one of M's shoes. Minimal agony for both of us.

So, went back inside, armed myself with Mortein spray and Converse boot, took a deep breath and went back outside. 

Took another deep breath and sprayed.

Spider moved with lightning speed, under the doorway and out onto the patio, but to my utter shock, terror and dismay hundreds of little baby spiders that it was carrying on its back came flooding off it like something out of an arachnophobic's worst horror-movie nightmare.  I squealed and gibbered like a kid who really does find a boogie-monster under the bed.  OH MY GOD.  THIS CANNOT BE HAPPENING!!!  In my panic and terror I sprayed and sprayed and sprayed until all the little babies were dead and gone, and the mother was staggering back to the haven of the corner of the doorway.  At this point, I squished and squished until she was no more.

Then I went back inside and cried and cried.  Not only had I killed an ecologically valuable little being because I was too scared to move it, but I had murdered a mother and her babies.  The little voice telling me that I would have fainted and been eaten alive by hundreds of spiders if I had have picked her up and tried to move her was no consolation.  I, a mother with a baby, had killed a mother with babies.  I felt sick.  I felt cold.  I felt wretched.

I went back outside and washed away the evidence of my crime with buckets of water, and picked up the tiny carcass and put it somewhere the dogs wouldn't find and eat it.  Sighing, I went back to my laundry.

I guess at the end of the day, people tell me to forget about it - they wouldn't have given it another thought.  "It's only a spider".  But to the spider, that was its whole life and all of its babies.  Gone in a few agonising moments of terror and pain.   It never hurts to remember that life is life, and everything is made for a purpose.  Even if it is only a spider.