along came a spider…

and sat down beside her, and frightened Miss Maryjo away!  So as some of you might know Matt found a black widow spider while working on the mailbox at the new house.  Safe distance from the actual house so I didn’t really give it another thought.  He actually has kept her in captivity & fed her since he found her over a month ago.  Anyway, she sits on my kitchen window sill & I never think about her ’til Matt picks her up or talks about her or feeds her or whatever.  He’s named her “charlotte” and she’s safely captured in a clear plastic container.  Well, this is not Charlotte, this is charLOTTA!  She’s about 5 times the size of Charlotte & she crawled over my pinky as she scurried to this corner in our linen closet.  So here’s the story, I’ve been wanting to unpack some boxes & get some closets lined & some things arranged in the house, but I’ve been enjoying my Christmas week with Matt home & the kids and really doing absolutely nothing!  Loving it, ’til last night.  I lined my linen closet & I’m arranging my linens, which I love linens so this is actually enjoyable, ’til I plop a towel on a shelf & charLOTTA makes an appearance & settles in this shelf notch…. after she crawls over my hand!  I scream for Matt who proceeds to scream further when he checks out her SIZE (I really can’t post what he said, but you get the idea).  Matt brought this box of towels in from the garage, at my request, where charLOTTA apparently found a nice cozy home.  YIKES!   Anyway, we don’t own any readily available repellant & anything we might own is packed in a box in the garage…. yeah, you get the idea.  So as charLOTTA is balled up in a crevice (she’s probably more scared of me than I am of her at this point…but it’s really no consolation!) Matt leaves to go to the neighbors.  He leaves me with 2 flashlights (there’s no light in the closet-mental note to change that) shining on her, a baseball bat {wtf?!!?} & strict instructions to follow her anywhere she goes so we don’t lose her in the house.  Anyway, after a few minutes (which seems like an eternity) of course she unfurls her legs & starts to move.  Why me!?!?!  So I move the flashlight closer & she freezes.  as I stare at her ‘cuz I don’t want to take my eyes off of her, I realize this is the perfect profile of a black widow spider.  So what do I do?  I take a snapshot.  Some things can’t be changed regardless of the situation.  Matt returned shortly with an arsenal of product & I’m sad to say we put her down.  Normally I preach that spiders are our friends, they kill other bugs, yada yada yada.  I’ve taught Sebastian to put them safely outside if we find them in the house.  BUT not this one sister!  Pest control just left & they can’t come back soon enough!  I look under, over, inside, outside of EVERYTHING now & I’m still recovering!  I’m not a wuss by any means, but being married to Matt & owning Charlotte for the last few months I knew it was a LARGE black widow spider walking ON me as soon as I spotted her.  I still need time to totally recover.  The kids thoroughly enjoyed the excitement and don’t seem perturbed, which is a good thing but could also be a very, very bad thing!  Pest control do your thing!