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The other day, I spotted a large, dark piece of dust in the corner of my bedroom. I wandered over to get a closer look and it scuttled to one side. Not a piece of dust then, I concluded, and went to get a ream of toilet paper to dump this intruder out the window.
I watched as the spider bounced about on its descent to the ground, all the while confident it would survive both the fall and the trauma of the encounter.
Spiders are a hardy lot. Nothing fazes them.
I had one living in the bathroom a couple of years ago.
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I spotted her first when I was perched on the loo. She had busied herself making a small, fairly skimpy web over in the corner, where the shower meets the wall and was happily squatting centre-stage.
I glanced down to find myself locking eyes with an enormous, hair-lined arachnid, angrily squatting on the paper in my hand
It was a pretty sub-par web, truth to be told, which took very little dismantling with the kitchen brush minutes later. But the next day, it was back again. She had run for cover when I’d arrived with the brush and had clearly watched from some crevice in the tiles as I’d demolished her creation. Unperturbed, she’d just got back to work.
As did I. And web number two bit the dust.
And so it went for a week or so. Web created, web obliterated. Now, there was, of course, a problem with my whole approach to the spider in the bathroom, in that I avoided confrontation with the actual culprit of the piece.
For some reason, I balked at smooshing this new resident of my home, a reticence which I put down to those daft superstitions about igniting rainstorms or bringing all sorts of bad luck cascading in my direction – and you really have to admire how spiders got it out there that they had some kind of sway when it came to either.
But one way or the other, I couldn’t bring myself to whack this specimen, an act I would have embarked upon with great enthusiasm had a passing fly or army of ants similarly ensconced themselves in my space.
Added to which, somewhere in the middle of it all, a kind of grudging respect for my squatter’s resilience settled in and I like to think that a sort of arrangement developed between us. The web remained small and scrappy and confined to one area. It was removed if visitors were on the horizon and some sense of order had to be restored but our unspoken agreement deemed that it could and invariably would reappear days later.
Which was all well and good until the web grew in width and dimension during one 24-hour period. As did the spider.
Was this the same spider, I found myself asking, staring at a significantly enlarged creature smugly reposed on a significantly enlarged web when I got in that evening? Or had another wandered into the neighbourhood and munched through spider number one while I was out?
And most importantly of all, how had my life come to this? Me standing in my apartment, pondering on the dimensions and cannibalistic tendencies of an eight-legged intruder in the loo?
Another ream of toilet paper came into play and I fairly swept through that web, wrapping the offender up in the process and dumping her unceremoniously out into the cold, dark air.
In truth, neither of these encounters left me rattled or distraught. I was wise to the way of spiders by then, having had a face-to-face encounter years previously which had genuinely left me gasping for air.
I was living abroad at the time and making use of the staff facilities of my high school. It’s fair to say that my mind was on other things as I reached for the toilet paper, dispensed from under a metal flap. That is, until I glanced down to find myself locking eyes with an enormous, hair-lined arachnid, angrily squatting on the paper in my hand.
I’m pretty sure about the angry bit as I’d clearly disturbed its hiding place. In fairness, though, who’d want to be yanked out into the open having got nicely nestled into one of the snuggest, cosiest locales in town.
But to be honest I didn’t overly concern myself with any of this when the encounter happened.
Instead, I flung the paper towards the cubicle wall and embarked on a stream of consciousness that would have left my English language students confused and bereft and most definitely blushing.
Spiders are always going to be there in the background, keeping out of the way, trying not to draw attention to themselves but fearless and resilient nonetheless as they set up home in those nooks and crannies.
And as for us? Our job is catch, capture and dispense.
They can take it. And more.