This whole episode ends with me dreaming about spiders. And talking about spiders for like three days to my wife, who has by now heard enough, I’m guessing. So let’s leap back to the beginning, this last weekend.
We had an old hot tub in the back yard, left over from the previous owners. We got someone to come and take it, and after it was gone, I planned to disassemble the 10’x10’-ish wooden platform under it. So far, so good.
The platform consisted of a wooden square, with four cross beams, and maybe 30 boards laid over them as the surface. Unfortunately, the deck screws had been in that wood for a decade, and had been painted over. I hit them all with the screw gun; about one in five came out. Fine. I removed the few I could. I decided it would be easier to get the circular saw, and cut lengthways through the floorboards one at a time, stomp on them in the middle, then reach in and pull the boards out, wrenching the stuck screws out of the cross beams. Successful strategy, it turned out.
The problem? That platform has been down there for over a decade: dark, dry, undisturbed. The perfect environment for spiders, and black widows in particular. I live in Southern Colorado, and we have lots of spiders. Garden spiders, wolf spiders, tarantulas (though those are rare). You just get used to them. The black widows take some getting used to, but they are a) plentiful and b) run away from you when you get close. Bites are rare, death is REALLY rare. Still. The bites are nasty.
So, I went slowly. I had the Dead playing, Europe 72—a three album set—to keep me loose and relaxed. I’d make my cuts, stomp on the boards, and then wrench them from the crossbeams. I didn’t wear gloves, or socks, but I looked where I put my hands and feet, and I turned over every board before picking it up. Nearly all the spiders I saw were underneath the floor boards. The first two black widows were pretty little, and scuttled away. No big deal.
The third spider was big, for a black widow (still pretty small, maybe the size of a dime, including legs). She didn’t move when I turned over the board. I just held the board still and admired her for a while. That shiny round oversized abdomen at the back, and those four sleek legs half-curled at the front. Jet-black except for a bit of the red blob on her belly. She was very pretty.
I tossed the board on the pile of other boards, imagining how the flight though the air and the landing must have felt for the spider. When It landed I visualized her realizing she was safe again, uncurling her legs, and gamboling off to some new dark, dry, undisturbed, spidery lair.
I almost stopped. I was a little scared to continue. I reminded myself they rarely bit, they usually ran away, and if I was careful I’d be fine. I listened to the Dead, and worked carefully. The days was hot, and the work was slow. I had a theory, mostly unverified by reality, that the noise and vibrations were slowly driving the spiders toward the far side of the platform. The concentration did seem to be rising. I kept count. Five spiders. Six. Eight. A couple were as large (and elegant) as that first beauty. I had to battle an urge to quit every time I found a big one. I continued.
By the end I had both feet in the newly uncovered part of the platform. When there was one board left, my fears that the remainder of the spiders were hanging out under there got the better of me. It was a silly fear in retrospect, and even felt a little silly at the time. But I’d been standing in the middle of Downtown Spiderville for the better part of an afternoon, constant checking my arms and legs. I had spiders on the brain, and was getting a little skittish. So I brushed the cavity out with a broom, then dismantled the last bit.
No spiders in that last section. Or the broom.
Whew.
I still had a ton of boards to carry up to the dumpster. I’d thrown them all into a pile at the end of the platform. Nearly every spider I found ended up in that pile, as I threw all the boards the stood on there. I was pretty sure most of them had run off. They had.
I found two more on the boards, as I carried them up. That took my grand total to eleven. The very last spider was pretty big, and apparently a little freaked out by all the movement. She was running all over the board, and I was getting as freaked out as she. I threw the board on the driveway as soon as I reached it, and stepped on it. When I picked it up: squished spider.
That was the only spider I (knowingly) killed. I’m sorry, little spider.
As I said in the opening sentences, this whole episode stuck with me more than I expected. Why? Mostly, I think, because I didn’t die. Didn’t get bit. Didn’t get too scared. I spent an afternoon of peaceful coexistence with what had to be hundreds of spiders (if I saw eleven, there had to be ten or twenty times that many hiding). I trusted my logic (they won’t bite, you won’t die) and allowed it to tamp my fears down far enough to get the job done.
I dreamed about spiders that night. Nothing nightmarish, just anxiety-provoking. I told my wife about it for days, as I remembered more details. The platform is dismantled, the black widows in new spider lairs (except for that dead one). No more dreams about them, and I have moved on to other, more joyous topics when talking to my wife.
Downtown Spiderville
Downtown Spiderville
Downtown Spiderville
This whole episode ends with me dreaming about spiders. And talking about spiders for like three days to my wife, who has by now heard enough, I’m guessing. So let’s leap back to the beginning, this last weekend.
We had an old hot tub in the back yard, left over from the previous owners. We got someone to come and take it, and after it was gone, I planned to disassemble the 10’x10’-ish wooden platform under it. So far, so good.
The platform consisted of a wooden square, with four cross beams, and maybe 30 boards laid over them as the surface. Unfortunately, the deck screws had been in that wood for a decade, and had been painted over. I hit them all with the screw gun; about one in five came out. Fine. I removed the few I could. I decided it would be easier to get the circular saw, and cut lengthways through the floorboards one at a time, stomp on them in the middle, then reach in and pull the boards out, wrenching the stuck screws out of the cross beams. Successful strategy, it turned out.
The problem? That platform has been down there for over a decade: dark, dry, undisturbed. The perfect environment for spiders, and black widows in particular. I live in Southern Colorado, and we have lots of spiders. Garden spiders, wolf spiders, tarantulas (though those are rare). You just get used to them. The black widows take some getting used to, but they are a) plentiful and b) run away from you when you get close. Bites are rare, death is REALLY rare. Still. The bites are nasty.
So, I went slowly. I had the Dead playing, Europe 72—a three album set—to keep me loose and relaxed. I’d make my cuts, stomp on the boards, and then wrench them from the crossbeams. I didn’t wear gloves, or socks, but I looked where I put my hands and feet, and I turned over every board before picking it up. Nearly all the spiders I saw were underneath the floor boards. The first two black widows were pretty little, and scuttled away. No big deal.
The third spider was big, for a black widow (still pretty small, maybe the size of a dime, including legs). She didn’t move when I turned over the board. I just held the board still and admired her for a while. That shiny round oversized abdomen at the back, and those four sleek legs half-curled at the front. Jet-black except for a bit of the red blob on her belly. She was very pretty.
I tossed the board on the pile of other boards, imagining how the flight though the air and the landing must have felt for the spider. When It landed I visualized her realizing she was safe again, uncurling her legs, and gamboling off to some new dark, dry, undisturbed, spidery lair.
I almost stopped. I was a little scared to continue. I reminded myself they rarely bit, they usually ran away, and if I was careful I’d be fine. I listened to the Dead, and worked carefully. The days was hot, and the work was slow. I had a theory, mostly unverified by reality, that the noise and vibrations were slowly driving the spiders toward the far side of the platform. The concentration did seem to be rising. I kept count. Five spiders. Six. Eight. A couple were as large (and elegant) as that first beauty. I had to battle an urge to quit every time I found a big one. I continued.
By the end I had both feet in the newly uncovered part of the platform. When there was one board left, my fears that the remainder of the spiders were hanging out under there got the better of me. It was a silly fear in retrospect, and even felt a little silly at the time. But I’d been standing in the middle of Downtown Spiderville for the better part of an afternoon, constant checking my arms and legs. I had spiders on the brain, and was getting a little skittish. So I brushed the cavity out with a broom, then dismantled the last bit.
No spiders in that last section. Or the broom.
Whew.
I still had a ton of boards to carry up to the dumpster. I’d thrown them all into a pile at the end of the platform. Nearly every spider I found ended up in that pile, as I threw all the boards the stood on there. I was pretty sure most of them had run off. They had.
I found two more on the boards, as I carried them up. That took my grand total to eleven. The very last spider was pretty big, and apparently a little freaked out by all the movement. She was running all over the board, and I was getting as freaked out as she. I threw the board on the driveway as soon as I reached it, and stepped on it. When I picked it up: squished spider.
That was the only spider I (knowingly) killed. I’m sorry, little spider.
As I said in the opening sentences, this whole episode stuck with me more than I expected. Why? Mostly, I think, because I didn’t die. Didn’t get bit. Didn’t get too scared. I spent an afternoon of peaceful coexistence with what had to be hundreds of spiders (if I saw eleven, there had to be ten or twenty times that many hiding). I trusted my logic (they won’t bite, you won’t die) and allowed it to tamp my fears down far enough to get the job done.
I dreamed about spiders that night. Nothing nightmarish, just anxiety-provoking. I told my wife about it for days, as I remembered more details. The platform is dismantled, the black widows in new spider lairs (except for that dead one). No more dreams about them, and I have moved on to other, more joyous topics when talking to my wife.
Peace.
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