On the West side of my house there lives a big, giant spider.
She is of the variety called Golden Orb spiders. As kids, we called them banana spiders, though I don't exactly know why. The correct, official type name is Golden Orb. In deference to my friends who are arachnophobic, I will not post a picture of this big, giant spider, but if you really want to see one, you can do so by clicking the link below.
Link -----> Golden Orb Spider
I know said spider is a female because she's big. And giant. And golden. And orb-like. If the spider were a male, he would be tiny, and brown, and small, and spindly, and barely visible, for such is the way of Golden Orb spiders. Again, refer to the link above. All that to say, I have a big, giant Golden Orb spider living on the West side of my house.
I've named her Anastasia.
The way I came to discover the big, giant golden Orb spider named Anastasia living on the West side of my house is as follows.
It was the day after I'd discovered my phone line had fallen off the side of my house. I'd gone out there to try to see how difficult it would be just to hang the cable over an exposed nail to get it out of the way until I can get the AT&T man out to take the whole thing down, since I no longer have a land line, and said cable is no longer necessary. After carefully examining the cable and nail, I turned around and there she was. Right in my face.
She'd built her web from my roses to the side of my house, and somehow, I'd managed to get myself inside the triangle formed by the house, fence, and spiderweb. See Figure 1.
Figure 1
How I got behind the web without realizing it, I have no idea, since said web was right about eye level. You'd think I'd...Wait...something is missing in that illustration...Oh, I've got it...there, that's better. See Figure 2.
Figure 2
I had to add my hair. When Cody was little, he'd always draw a stick thing coming out of my head when he drew pictures of me. One day, I asked him, "What's that think sticking out of my head?" He looked at me like it should be obvious, and said, "Your hair!" All righty, then...
As I was saying, you'd think I'd have gotten a face full of web as I passed it, but I didn't. Carefully, I extracted myself from behind the web, leaving Anastasia undisturbed, and fled to the relative safety of my house. As far as I know, she's still there. Living amongst my roses, which will now be allowed to run wild until they take over the house and yard. And neighbor's yard. And the whole world.
This isn't the first time I've had dealings with big, giant spiders. Back when we lived in our trailer house in my cousin's side yard, we had a big, giant spider that built a web between the back steps and the side of the house. Cody named that one Jeff.
That October, Cody used his birthday money to buy himself a football. We had returned from the store, and I was inside the house paying bills or something, I don't remember. I could hear Cody in the back yard kicking his football around. Soon, however, things went quiet. In a moment, I heard the back door open, and a wee, plaintive voice called, "Mama, the big, giant spider has my new football." The aforementioned new football had rolled behind the aforementioned spider's aforementioned web, and guess who got to get it out. Sigh, a mother's love knows no bounds.
Not even big, giant spiders named Jeff.
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