Sunday, September 09, 2007

Have You Checked Your Ears for Eggs Lately?

Let’s look at the list Reha made for the fam of “stuff to do” yesterday, shall we?

  1. Start laundry
  2. Unload dishwasher
  3. Clean living room (everything out so the new beam can be installed)
  4. Look for junk and trash outside to put in the dumpster
  5. pick plums from the backyard tree
  6. find tarantula
  7. make lunches
  8. begin packing up bedrooms
  9. feed rabbit
  10. clean bathrooms

Wait…

Back up.

Read #6 again.

“Find tarantula”

Hmm. That one seems like it could use some further explanation.

On Saturday, while driving down our street on the way to do innumerable errands, the Deal Family Van o’ Fun passed over a very large creature scuttling across the road. Reha and I both said, “Wha?” and pulled over to investigate this thing further.

It was a rather large (or small, depending on your perspective) spider heading west across our street. We stood there in the middle of the road, staring at it for a while, wondering where this thing came from. Seemed to us like it might be an escaped pet of some sort. Which was more than a little odd since we knew that every house in the immediately vicinity held only really old people. Who probably don’t have “extreme” pets like snakes or enormous spiders.

While I’m on the subject. Spiders do not strike me as good “pet” material. Nor do snakes or big lizards. Though we once had a bearded dragon lizard which wasn’t as bad a pet as you’d think. S/he was pretty docile until it came time to feed it crickets at which point the thing became a demon of activity. Kinda cool, I guess. Anyway, really big spider? Weird pet, that’s all I’m saying. Not the same as a cuddly kitten or fuzzy puppy. And I’m going to admit right here that spiders kind of give me the willies. And especially this tarantula we “rescued.” Watching the thing creep along, legs arching and slowing moving forward, just plain icks me out. *Shudder*

After perseverating for a while we decided that we should take the thing home, make it as comfortable as possible and then post signs in the neighborhood which said, “Found: Ginormous and creepy Spider. Answers to the name of Shirley. Call 555-7381 if you want it back. Be prepared to explain to us why you keep something this spooky as a pet. You’re Welcome! The Deal Clan.”

We gently placed the little guy (speaking metaphorically of course) in a Converse shoe box and made sure s/he had air and then went on our way to do our mountain of crap.

Ellis immediately decided that the hairy Beast of Doom was a female and was about to have babies. “Very cute babies!” She didn’t have any evidence the thing was preggo-s, but she seemed pretty sure and talked and talked and talked about the pregnant spider all afternoon. Personally I think she’s seen “Charlotte’s Web” one too many times. And the thought of a zillion little furry tarantulas crawling around in that shoebox gave me another bout of the “yechs!” yet again.

Later that night Carrie (who is NOT a-scared at all of spiders, snakes or other “icky” things), walked into our room and woke us up from a deep sleep to announce, “The tarantula has escaped and is gone, I just thought you should know that.”

How well did I sleep after that, imagining the Beast Spawn from Hell (and her trillion babies) crawling around the house, into our bedroom, up the side of the bed and laying more eggs in my ear?

Not well at all.

We looked all yesterday for Shirley the Pregnant Spider of Death while doing the rest of that things on that list and she was nowhere to be found. Now even though I really don’t want the thing in my life, I feel terrible that it is roaming the halls of our house, looking for insects, water, small children or other food to eat, and it probably won’t find any. Plus, given the state of disassembly of the house right now, odds are high it has sequestered itself someplace and will get itself walled up once we put sheet rock back up. Guilt.

And I have to explain to the general contractor to be on the look out for a HUGE spider and it he finds it, to put it in the Converse box and then place the signs throughout the neighborhood. Never mind about the steel beam that will support the roof, make sure Shirley finds her way back home before she gives birth to all those spider babies!

This also follows the Deal Family Tradition regarding stray animals/pets:

  1. See tarantula/bird/small rodent on side of the road.
  2. Pull over immediately.
  3. Save arachnid/bird/animal from “certain” doom.
  4. Bring arachnid/bird/animal to our home for nursing/care/feeding/smooshing.
  5. Lose arachnid/bird/animal from shoebox where we were holding it until we could get to a Pet Smart.
  6. Fin.
  7. Repeat as necessary

See! Look! She gnawed off Lucas’ hand shortly after this photo was taken!

Posted by Jon on 09/09/07 at 12:07 AM

  1. Have you found Shirley yet?  That’s creepy!

    Posted by michael  on  09/10/07  at  11:55 AM

  2. She has not been located.

    She’s probably still in the house.

    Creepy does not even begin to describe how I feel about it.

    Posted by jon  on  09/10/07  at  12:00 PM

  3. Like I didn’t already have the willies, ya had to go and show the picture.  You’ll never be quite sure you walled ol’ Shirl up, and god knows if you’ll EVER get a good night’s sleep again.

    Posted by Sandy  on  09/10/07  at  04:16 PM

  4. What, why?  You brought that thing INTO your house?  OMG!??

    Posted by NerdGirl  on  09/11/07  at  10:37 AM

  5. I heart Converse.

    Posted by Radioactive Jam  on  09/11/07  at  12:20 PM

  6. That is pretty funny, but I must say, I wouldn’t want that on my to do list.  Linked from RaJ, you have a great blog.

    Posted by Dawn  on  09/14/07  at  07:54 AM

  7. Totally hilarious! I’m a spider fan myself and have rescued a couple of tarantulas, but not lately. I do have an orange one I have a sick kind of attachment to that hangs around on my porch…

    Posted by kellypea  on  09/14/07  at  11:11 AM
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