Step 5: Make a Spider-Buddy

In honor of the sharks in Finding Nemo . . .

My day today can be summed up as follows: more cleaning, more spiders. I deep-cleaned the livingroom (which means actually hitting ever surface possible with some type of cleaner) - and I took every plant to the kitchen sink and a) watered it by b) rinsing all the leaves under the faucet. Well . . . all the plants except one dusty Peace Lily. I picked up the base, and a brown spider shot out from under the planter into the water saucer - saw my fingers - interpreted them as something big, scary, and most likely harmful to spiders - and ran back into the plant.

Since he was such a gentleman of a spider (i.e., he ran the other way - rather than down my arm), I decided we could try working out a living arrangement. The agreement is as follows: he lives in the plant and eats the annoying black flies, and I don't smoosh him. If he is found in any area more than five feet from his plant, I smoosh him. If he freaks me out too badly, I smoosh him.

I named him Henry.

And yes, this "adoption" is mostly because I am now afraid to move my plant. But, I was able to scrape up enough courage to peek into the water saucer, and Henry seems to be one of those spiders that builds a little tiny web nest - which he was huddled in. I know I've seen him on the wall at least once before, so I don't think he wanders much.

Of course, after T. reads this post, Henry may disappear mysteriously . . .

And for anyone who thinks the conditions of our living arrangement are a touch harsh - I remind you that winter is fast approaching, and Henry scores a warm place with a ton of fungus flies (yes, those tiny gnat-size black flies that try and fly up your nose are called fungus flies) - and, since I seem to be the spider magnet, has a pretty good chance of meeting a pretty girl-spider in the neighborhood next spring.

Maybe I'll get lucky and she'll eat him.