Spider Raid

Chicken Soup for the Soul: All in the Family

BY: Susan Farr-Fahncke

If you want to live and thrive, let the spider run alive.
~American Quaker Saying

The shrieks of the thirty-year-old man alerted me. The ensuing crashing sounds and his screaming demands for the fly swatter confirmed it. A spider. Sighing, I grabbed the jumbo-sized can of Raid (step two in his "system" for spider killing) and headed for the sounds of panic. The thirty-year-old man is an arachnophobe, and he is my husband. "Marty" (I'll try my best to protect his identity) can fell a ten-point buck at one hundred yards without a flinch. He can pick up a snake with his bare hands and change a dirty diaper with barely a grimace. He rode his bicycle twenty-four hours in the Sierra Nevada Mountains for charity. But show him a Daddy Long Legs, and he runs like a little girl, with shrieks that make our three-year-old (who is deaf) leave claw marks on my neck.

I wish I could send him to a Spider Sissies Anonymous meeting. With so many people in the world living in fear of eight-legged creatures, one would think it would be very popular.

"Hello, my name is Marty, and I am terrified of spiders."

"Helloooo, Marty!"

Unfortunately, there isn't such an organization. Our fourteen-year-old, Nick, used to be our Family Spider Killer. But fear must be a learned trait because he is now the quivering mess that my husband is at the sight of anything with eight legs.

I tried to train the three-year-old to kill spiders, but being the quick-minded toddler that he is, he now knows to point, scream and run--in that order.

That leaves my eight-year-old daughter, Maya. Maya is as tough as a Humvee. She once found a Brown Recluse the size of a peach in the shower. Calmly stepping out, she announced, "Someone needs to get that thing." She's tough, but she's not stupid. Half a can of Raid and a shredded fly swatter later, my husband went to our room to lie down and recover while Maya fearlessly finished her shower.

And then there is me. I am a woman. It's expected of me to fear them. Our family lives in Utah, which is home of the Monster Spiders. My first experience with a Wolf Spider (a slightly smaller version of the tarantula) was actually while I was driving sixty-five miles an hour on the freeway. Something moving on the passenger floor of the car caught my eye. Glancing down, I let out a scream that actually froze the spider in place. It was the most horrid, hairy, striped thing I had ever seen. Slamming on my brakes and jetting sideways into the median, I went from sixty-five to zero in less time than it takes to wet yourself.

It just so happened that I had a pile of rocks on the front seat next to me. (They were for my garden, which is probably where the spider came from in the first place.) Snatching one in my trembling hands, I hefted it onto the spider and then repeatedly stomped on it, screaming the entire time. From that point on, I got weak-kneed at the sight of Wolf Spiders--or anything vaguely resembling them.

So, "Marty" (not his real name, I swear), who vowed to love, honor and protect me, is forced to be the exterminator in our home. I run to another room and shut the door until it's over. My favorite part is listening to the sound of furniture being knocked over, pictures falling off the walls, my husband cursing, the kids squealing, and much thumping and crashing in general. I don't want to see it, but it's fun to listen to. And it's the only way to get a spider killed in this house.

http://www.beliefnet.com/Inspiration/Chicken-Soup-For-The-Soul/2009/11/Spider-Raid.aspx?source=NEWSLETTER