On Sunday we all got up, ate waffles and raspberries and got ready for church. Seemed like an ordinary Sunday. When we got back from visiting God, I made ravioli for lunch and Jim got Nicole’s highchair tray to serve her portion.
“What’s this?” he asked pointing to about 2 dozen black dots along the edge.
Upon further inspection we discovered they were tiny, little baby spiders. I'm not one to get grossed out about bugs so we cleaned and disinfected and generally thought it was weird but oh well. That “oh well” opinion changed when we sat down at the table to eat and saw hundreds of baby spiders burned up in the sun on our kitchen table.
Apparently we were hosting a pregnant spider in the mum that Grandma gave me. The plant, which was sitting in the center of the kitchen table, was coated in spiders. Some brave ones had left the plant and died on the table top, others made it to the floor and lined the hardwood under the window sills. I wouldn't go so far as to say there were "thousands" of them though it'd spice up this story even more, but several hundred (600?) is a pretty accurate guess.
We swiffered, vacuumed, removed all plants from the room, Clorox wiped, and vacuumed again on our hands and knees with the hose. What started out as the end of Charlotte’s Web (when all her babies head off into the world) turned into Honey I Shrunk the Kids with us crawling around inspecting every nook and cranny of the kitchen for little spiders. I think we got them all except for some stubborn ones (that appeared dead) deep in the air vents that refused to get sucked out.
End of the day it surprises me more that this has never happened before than it happening at all. How many spiders live in your house you’re unaware of throughout your life? Doesn’t it seem reasonable, even probable, that eventually one of your tenants is knocked up? Unfortunately even with this logic Jim has requested approval on all “outside plants” being brought inside the house.
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8 comments:
A month ago, I found a spider nest probably right before the babies were born in my front closet. Thank goodness, although my condo has more than its fair share of spiders.
We have lots of spiders, too, but nothing like that. I think the cats probably eat most of them...
Earlier this year we had a grain moth infestation. One of Trey's bags of birdseed was apparently "bad" and we ended up with the little guys around for moths. The cats, Sepp especially, were good at catching them, too, but cats can only climb so high.
The seed was thrown out immediately, any grain products that had been unopened and not chewed through (rice, etc.) went into both plastic bags and Tupperware, and their number decreased significantly. We weren't totally rid of them, however, until I discovered that they'd also been chewing through the containers of a particular kind of barbecue rub - must've been the sugar.
ew, your post makes me shudder. How creepy (and so fitting days before Halloween...)
I think about that all too often, and now, thanks to you, it will be on my mind even more so. It wouldn't suprise me if I had nightmares about that tonight, just from reading your post (and my fear of that happening to me). Ironically I consider my relationship with spiders "healthy" - if they're in a sink or in the bathroom, they're likely to drown. If they're in my bedroom they're likely to die (b/c I'll lose track of them when I sleep). If they're anywhere else in my home, they are permitted to exist, provided they aren't huge. I may have to change that philosophy....
That put a very gross picture in my head. I don't actually mind spiders, but 600 ?!? Holy Shit. David would have a blast - he's scared of them.
Oops- almost forgot:
ELMO!
Okay this story was definitely gross, but it's still better than MICE. :P
AAAAAAAhhhhh, that freaked me out! I would not have been able to sleep that night!
Wow. I know our garage is a massive maternity ward and we clean up the nests about this time every year. Yuck. Good thing "Mr. I'm Afraid of Spiders" does that job!
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