I love nearly all animals, but there are two that really scare me . . . spiders and bees. I guess they aren’t classified as animals, but they still scare me. If a bee flies into my house, I immediately run out into the street and will even stop a car and drag someone out to come in and kill it for me! I have done that – not actually in the street, but I did grab a strange man outside on the sidewalk. I don’t mean he was “strange” strange – it’s just that I didn’t know him. But he killed the bee for me and then went on his way. I can take care of spiders pretty well in the house, but it’s quite a process. I’m not one of those people who say, “Oh, let’s take the little spider outside – we’ll slide some paper under him, put a glass over him and free him outside where he’ll be happy.” That’s not my style. If I see a spider on the wall – even if it’s 2am – I run to the closet and get my vacuum. I find the long hose attachment, turn on the vacuum, spray some raid into it and suck up the little beast. I don’t harm spiders outside . . . just in my house.

The other day I had a horrifying experience. I was in the bedroom and went over to the sink, and there was a spider in it! I immediately ran water on it and washed it down the drain . . . or so I thought. Quite a while later, I went back to the bathroom sink and there were big, black hairy legs crawling out of the drain! I was horrified again, and this time I turned on the hot water and let it run a long time to make sure he wouldn’t be crawling up again. I had never seen anything like that before, and it makes me wonder if there are a bunch of spiders in the bathtub drain, just waiting to crawl up and attack me! I’ve washed quite a few down there. I’ll be watching. I did the above illustration myself of the spider crawling up and out. I know it’s not very good, but I couldn’t get anyone with any talent to do it for me.

I’ve been hearing a lot about the giant spider web that spreads over several acres of a North Texas park. Webs like that aren’t usually seen in the US as they are most often built by communal spiders that live in the tropics. This one is drawing attention from all over the world – some people are repulsed by it and others think it’s beautiful. It apparently has a fetid odor which is probably the result of all the insects captured in it. Can you imagine walking into something like that – thousands of spiders working while you struggle to get out? That’s almost worse than the spider in the drain!