WERE-SHELOB LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVES!!!!!!!

Well, okay, that title is a bit misleading, since we killed the f***er.  How about

“Things I’ve Learned as a Home Owner #6: Sometimes horrible creatures will invade your house and you will have to do battle.”

It’s eleven o’clock at night.  I’m making the nightly round, checking the locks and doors, and I reach for the sawed-off broomstick that wedges the sliding patio door.  As I sweep back the curtain and reach down, I notice A SPIDER THE SIZE OF A F***ING CADILLAC SITTING ON THE INSIDE OF OUR GLASS DOOR.

My gasp leads Mike to call out worriedly, “What’s wrong?”

“MIKE OMIGOD THERE’S A HUGE HUGE F***ING SPIDER ON THE DOOR OMIGOD IT’S HUGE!!!!”

(Seriously.  I cannot emphasize enough the SIZE of this monster.  To a girl raised in the Northeast, it looked big enough to swallow Rajah whole and then chase small children.  It was horrifying.)

Question: What caliber for gigantic terrifying spider?

Answer: STING.  But Bilbo hadn’t given me one.

Here is the chain of events, as I can most properly recall it:

ITEM: Lissa and Mike go running for rubber gloves, shoes, 409, RAID, and magazines.  Lissa curses herself for not having a stainless steel flyswatter. Considers sacrificing her favorite kitchen spatula, which would of course have to be bleached, doused with flammable liquid, and burnt.

ITEM: MIKE: “Um, I have bad news.  The spider’s gone.”

LISSA:  “AUUUGGGHHHH!!  FIND IT FIND IT FIND IT KIIIIILLLLLL IIIIIIITTTT!!!”

ITEM: We discover that the spider has retreated to higher ground.  It is now lurking in the corner of our box-like curtain header, perhaps ten feet off the ground.

ITEM: In the process of re-locating the beast and in the interest of preventing future hiding places, we rip down the curtains themselves. They were getting in our way, they were ugly and I never liked them anyway.  I immediately fling them onto the back porch, lest they be hiding a million renegade spiders between their layers.

ITEM: Using an light bulb changer extension pole, we attempt to squash the spider.  It thumbs its nose at us and climbs higher still.

ITEM: Mike fiercely wields the sawed-off broomstick.  The monster judges discretion to be the better part of valor and makes a run across the wall.

ITEM: Mike SLAMS the scurrying bastard with a back-handed broomstick.  Two legs fly off and the fiend drops to the floor.

ITEM: Lissa flies across the field of battle and douses the fallen corpse with copious amounts of 409.  Just in case.

ITEM: Lissa photographs the vanquished enemy.  Pix will appear below the fold for the benefit of the arachnophobic.

ITEM: Mike notices that he has dented the wall/dinked the paint where he slammed the broomstick.  Then realizes that it’s just a big blog of spider guts.

ITEM: Lissa gingerly uses a pair of disposable chopsticks to pick up the corpse and place it in a plastic container with a tight lid.  She also picks up the two legs that flew some three feet from the body.  She douses the entire battlefield with 409 and scrubs compulsively.

ITEM: Lissa and Mike pour drinks for themselves.  Lissa drinks her Glenlivet with shaking hands.

And now: The Vanquished Foe!

That's a quarter for scale. Imagine all the legs spread out instead of crumpled up, and you'll see why I was horrified.

You can click to embiggen, but why in God’s name would you want to?

CODA: The pest prevention people confirmed that it was a wolf spider (thus, the post title).  Apparently there are 2000 varieties of these horrible creatures living in Florida.  They’re not venomous, and therefore not dangerous, which is a mercy.  Because I had spider nightmares all that night.

CODA II: Yes, I realize that this incident disqualifies me from ever living in Texas, Latin America, South America and many other places.  I accept that.