Traumatic. Spider. Incident.

The other morning, I came downstairs all bleary-eyed and started a pot of coffee, as is my habit.

Then, I went about opening all the blinds, as is my habit.

I can't stand looking at the blinds. I want to see outside. The blinds make me feel claustrophobic, so I open them up first thing.

When opening the blinds, I noticed a tiny spider hanging from the bottom of my curtain in the kitchen. And the curtains seemed to be all dirty. So, not yet having my contacts in, I looked closer. And closer, and closer, until I was basically nose-to-nose with approximately 150 new born wolf spiders.

Click on the photo to make the spiders bigger. If you dare.

Well, those spiders weren't there the night before. And they were all within a small area, so I knew that the nest must be close by. But, before taking any further action, I had to do a few things. Like putting in my contacts, having a cup of coffee and calling Kevin.

Kevin suggested that I spray the spiders with alcohol to kill them. I tried that at first, but spiders are tricky little buggers, and they just spun their webs and started dropping to the floor to avoid the spray. So I resorted to squishing them with a paper towel. Fortunately, they were tiny.

The spiders were on the curtain and the ceiling and the window and the walls and the floor and the blinds and, mostly, on the inside of the curtain. I squished and squished and squished, and Connor cheered me on. He was my cheerleader and I was his champion.

"You can squish them, Mom! I know you'll get them all!"

"Squish them, squish them, eek! You missed one, Mom!"

Finally, I found the nest:

I will confess that I was afraid that sticky mess would be hard to clean up, but it wiped right off the curtain and the wall with a single paper towel. (By the way, I love the Viva paper towels by Kleenex. They are thick enough to make me feel like a spider wasn't going to poke through to the other side.)

It took F.O.R.E.V.E.R. but I finally got all the tiny spiders squished and into the trashcan. Then, I took out the trash, just in case any of them were faking it. I haven't seen a spider since then, and it's been a few days. Thank heavens.

Oh, and I never encountered the mama spider, either, and I'm hoping that she was the spider hanging out by the window that Kevin nabbed a few days before this Traumatic. Spider. Incident.

Sidebar: The night before this Traumatic. Spider. Incident., I killed a fly using a fly swatter.

You know the kids go in and out and in and out all summer, so flies come in with them.

Anyways, after I killed the fly, Kevin said,

"Did you say a little prayer?"

Incredulous, I said, of course, "No."

And then, Kevin, with perfect seriousness, said,

"Whenever you kill, you should say a prayer for the soul you just dispatched."

To which I replied: "That may be the strangest thing you have ever said to me."

And, no, I didn't pray for any of the spiders. Not a single one.

Sidebar the Second: Traumatic. Spider. Incident. would be a good name for a band. Or a movie. Or something.