Thursday, August 4, 2011

The Black Widow Spider Story: Death by….Chocolate?

When DH and I finished buying the house at the lawyer’s office, we quickly loaded the kids into our rented SUV, (suh-weet ride! How I miss you!) and headed down to our new home. The kids ran into the house while we unloaded the car from the garage. DH pointed to the corner.


“See that? Is that what I think it is?” He carefully said when the kids were gone.

Oh yeah. That is exactly what it was. THERE WAS A POISONOUS SPIDER IN MY GARAGE AND IT WAS GOING TO KILL MY BABIES IN THEIR SLEEP!!!!

Ok. So I had to calm down a bit. My normal laid-back attitude shielded the children from my initial reaction. But inside I was freaking out.

This did not get better after a night on the carpet in the living room. In my head, spiders crawled all over me. Before we went to sleep, DH had attempted to kill the “lady spider” (my nickname for her) but she zipped back into her hole. I imagined she was plotting revenge, and had her eyes on my DD2.

DH went to work the next day, leaving me in my dream home turned nightmare with 4 kids and no furniture or toys. I walked out on the patio to enjoy the morning sunshine was greeted by an EVEN BIGGER black widow on the corner of the porch RIGHT NEXT TO MY FOOT!!!! ARGH!!!

Even though I know spiders don’t travel in packs (that’s what DH says), I became obsessed with the problem. The joy of being in this new, sunny place was lost on me as I completely paralyzed myself with fear. It was all I could think about for days! I prayed for protection for my kids and peace for myself.

That night, I went out to the store and DH watched the kids. My son took an Andes’ candy and then “remembered” he didn’t like chocolate. He opened the back door and spit the whole mouthful out on our brand new patio. EW!

In the morning, the day they were to deliver all our worldly belongings, I found our patio “lady spider” belly up next to the mint center of DS4’s nasty spit. Really? I showed DH the spider, and we captured it in a jar. AND then it MOVED! Like I wasn’t creeped out enough before??!!

That day, while the moving guys were carrying our stuff into the house, DH called the exterminator and asked them to come out ASAP. When the spider removal company came, he mixed up some nasty spider juice and sprayed all the nooks and crannies around the outside of the house and in the garage.

HE. FOUND. (and killed) FIVE. SPIDERS.

You can look at this two ways. One, five black widows do not make an army. My family actually outnumbered them.

Or two, MY HOUSE WAS COVERED WITH DEADLY CREEPY SPIDERS!!!

The cost: $85.00 – well worth it even if it was just the 2 we found! But part of me wonders if we had just spit chocolate mints at them it would have saved us the bill…we are trying to save money right now until we sell the Pittsburgh house. I’m sleeping much better at night now. And I love my house, even if every dark spot inside and around it seems like a spider.