The Exploding Spider of Carlsbad
Now, I grew up in Houston, Texas, home of the flying cockroach. (and yes, typing that did just make me break out into the itchies) Growing up with such an evil creature around, I have developed a liking for EVERY OTHER INSECT THAT ISN'T A ROACH! Spiders included. So I'm no stranger to creepy crawlies and they don't bug me too much. (However, I knew I'd entered adulthood the day that watching that horrid insect-filled corridor scene in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom made me freak out. Before that I watched in awe and excitement as a child)
Back to the story. It was my very first season at the cave, in fact it was my first season as a seasonal ranger. I moved into my seasonal quarters and quickly learned that insects would be my roommates. The girls already living there informed me that the hall light was to be kept on every night to lure the insects away from the bedrooms. I'll pause for all of you to go throw up or freak out from that thought. While I'm pausing, I'll list the insects found on the wall around the light each morning.
- gnats
- moths
- roaches (hurl!)
- millipedes
- centipedes
- beetles
- bugs with no names, unless you are an entemologist
- scorpions (!!!!!!!!!!!!)
- small spiders
- medium spiders
- really big spiders eating all the insects mentioned above
In retrospect, I'm glad for the insect-induced shoe wearing. After living there for a year, the carpets were scheduled for a shampooing. I came home to wet beige carpet. Not dark brown, but beige! I can only imagine the countless bug carcasses that must have littered the floor, turning the carpet brown with their essence. Gettysburg in my living room.
There were 3 of us living in the house and, due to the terror-inducing carpet, we all crammed on the 3 seater sofa every evening. Only a few nights of lights-off movie watching and we learned that the sofa was also insect-afflicted. Imagine sitting on the couch with your new best friends, lights off, scary scary Japanese movie on tv where people die from cell phone use (oh wait, didn't science prove that could happen? hello brain-cancer), and suddenly something crawls accross your shoulder, onto your neck and disappears into your hair. What would you do? What would Jesus do? Well, we did what became known as the "spider dance". The individual would jump of the couch a lightning speed, and screaming or whimpering, run in place while shaking their heads furiously to dislodge the offending creature. Once it was gone and the heebie jeebies were over, they would sit back down and finish the movie. We would pause it, cause after all, we were polite It was a guest ritual. Male, female, everyone on our couch would eventually do the spider dance. It was a great ice-breaker for the new employees.
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| Roommates on Spider Couch, watching movie and suffering from cabin fever after a nasty snow storm. |
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| Roommates vogue-ing.... cabin fever, I swear |
Then there was the morning that my morning coffee was horribly ruined. See I'd wake up very very early so that I could make my coffee and sit at the bar, reading in the peaceful quiet of my roommates slumber. Eventually roomie S would come in and make her coffee, grunt a good morning and retire to her room. So this one morning as I'm sitting at the bar, where I've been for an hour, S walks in. After a few minutes I notice that she's not moving. I look up at her and she is standing in the kitchen doorway, mouth open, horrified expression on her face and pointing just above my head. I look up (this happened in slow-motion, I swear!) and chilling out directly over my head on the ceiling is the biggest wolf spider I've ever seen. Even though I'm dying inside, I very slowly get up, grab my coffee, and walk away. Just in the nick of time because the spider fell from the ceiling, I assume from the sheer WEIGHT of its ginormous body, and landed in my seat. S ran screaming, doing a variation of the spider dance while I stood there and watched it crawl up the drapes, swearing I wouldn't lose eye contact until it was out of the house. We finally managed to get it out of the house using a time-honored roommate tradition. We called the guy next door. Of course, this guy laughed at us on the phone cause we couldn't take care of the little spider. He showed up with a cup too small to hold the creature, freaked out by the size of it but managed to lure it outside.
But nothing compares with the exploding spider. A week after I'd moved in and had learned the ways of the insect night light, I discovered a really large hairy spider in the middle of my bedroom floor. I'd had a long day and just wanted to change and have dinner. This spider wanted none of that. It sat in my path in the middle of the floor and wouldn't move. I tried shooing it out but it would only chase me. When I'd had enough of trying to be nice and follow Geneva Convention, I reached for the bug spray. I took aim. I fired. The spider exploded!
Literally, little brown bits went shooting off of it! In all directions, over all of my unpacked items that I now would never be able to touch again.
Little known fact to this young ranger, some spiders carry their young on their backs where they can "abandon ship" to save themselves.
I slept the next few nights on the couch and used the entire can of bug spray in the bedroom. Even so, I spent the next 5 months constantly worried that a baby spider would take revenge by crawling into my ear and exploding its own offspring in my brain.
Sweet Dreams!
(and in case you were wondering, I'm still itching)
