This is the story of a spider
2005-09-05 ~ 11:03 a.m.
The other day, the ever amusing Plopphizz posted a spider story. Now, I know this wasn't a new story but rather a repost, but, in the infamous words of the NBC marketing execs circa 1995, "If you haven't seen it, it's New To You"
So anyway, yeah, reading his story prompted me to share one of my own spider stories. And this one starts, as most stories do, with a Bob.
Hurricane Bob that is.
Back in 1986 after graduating from high school (YES, I'm old, get over it already) my girlfriends and I partook in that most longstanding of traditions: Senior Week at the beach. WOOOO!!! Of course, I don't remember much beach from that week. What I do remember could fill several entries of their own but those stories have nothing to do with spiders so let's move on.
Five years later, we had our own little high school reunion, again at the beach. We had a little house we rented right on the beach. And the window of the bedroom I shared with Tea looked out onto the back of a bait and tackle shop. And also onto the back of a bait and tackle shop employee. Mmmm....and what a back it was.
Again, I digress.
So one afternoon, we see on TV that a hurricane is coming. Hurricane Bob. They called for evacuation. We didn't. (Yes, I know the timing for this particular part of the story sucks. And no, I can't remember why we didn't evacuate. We were young and foolish I suppose. And also, very rarely has a hurricane remained strong enough to really cause a heckuva lot of damage to Maryland. Well, at least not Central Maryland. Where we lived. Although not, admittedly where we were at the time of the hurricane. Oh shut it, we should've left and we didn,t, can I carry on now?)
So there was excitement and giddiness in the air.
Tea and I decided to head out to the snack shop on the corner. Just as we went to open the door we saw a HUGE spiderweb covering the doorway with an equally huge (proportionally speaking, of course) spider in the middle of it. Being girly girls, we shrieked in terror, but no worries, Krumpet's father came to the rescue with a fly swatter.
What? Krumpet's father? What was he doing there, I hear you ask. Ah, again, a story for another time. I wonder how ole Jack is doing these days, though.
Except. He didn't quite kill it. We saw it fly through the air and then land on the porch, breaking two of it's legs and as it hobbled off we saw it shaking one of it's forelegs at us, hissing, "I'll get you for this. You and your little dog too!"
Eep!
We decided to name the spider Bob, after the hurricane. And that night, the world changed.
At least, that's what I was told when I woke up the next morning. Which was very eerie. I assumed Hurricane Bob had wrought untold havoc upon us but no, not so much. Some stuff blown around but nothing major. But the world had changed because see, that was the night (daytime for them) that the Russian Empire fell. Or something like that. Look it up, if I had to guess at the date I'd say August 19, 1991. Oh heck, hang on, I'll check.
Okay, wow, I'm kinda creeped out that I hit the date right on the nose.
So okay, history lesson over, moving on.
At some point during that week, we saw Y-Not?! for the first time, at a club called Scandals. Krumpet developed a fixation onobsession with little bit of a crush on the bass played while I crushed on one of the roadies. (Shut upppp....he had long blond hair. I liked that at the time.)
So of course, this meant that we had to follow the band everywhere they went. We returned home at the end of the week and proceeded to traipse all over the Mid-Atlantic region to see this band perform. And sure enough, one night they returned to Scandals so we embarked on a three hour cruise...er, I mean roadtrip to see them.
Two bad things happened that night. One, Krumpet came face to face with and actually had a conversation with the parents of her bassist's fiancee. Urp. Cue deer in the headlights look from Krumpet. And two, we realized that we had returned to the scene of the crime against Bob the spider and at that very moment, he was attaching himself to the underside of our car, Cape Fear-esque, waiting to hitch a ride home with us so that he could infiltrate us and everyone that we hold near and dear with his spidery evilness.
We decided to fight spider with spider. We knew the only thing we could do was embrace the spideryness of everyday life.
We were cowriting a novel (which we sadly never finished, but it was genius, I tell you, pure genius. If I can find the draft I might, with Krumpet's permission, post some excerpts) and we decided our main character needed to have a spider for a pet. A wolf spider. Because it reminded him of the woman he loved. (Don't ask)
So we went to the library to do research on wolf spiders. Yep. The two of us are the most spider-skeered people on the face of this planet (we once tried to kill a spider by tossing a glass soda bottle at it - we were out of Raid but we couldn't get close enough to smack it with something because it might have lept upon us and done awful spidery thing to our limp and lifeless bodies) but we were willingly looking at books about spiders.
There we stood, nervously turning pages, trying not to look at photos when there was a movement off to my side. I eeped (no, that's not a typo. I "eep"-ed, not "peed") and jumped away quickly, only to realize that the movement was made by a library patron. "I'm sorry," I said, "I thought you were a spider."
Sigh.
So we did our research and we found out all about wolf spiders and that they court female spiders by waving thier forelegs and then they wrap up a gift for the female and while she's distracted opening it they mate with her.
And this gift is usually a rock wrapped in leaves.
Lady spiders are DUMB.
But trust me, this knowledge came in handy. We went out to dinner once with a bunch of people including Krumpet's friend John. John liked the waitress but could't figure out how to get her attention. So we gave him some advice from the animal world and he waved his arms at her and presented her with a piece of gravel wrapped up in a paper napkin.
And they've been together ever since.
Okay that last sentence is untrue. But it does make for a great ending though right? RIGHT?
