A spider love story

By Ally Mullord

It's official. My humble bedroom has become a sordid love nest.

As of this evening, I am harbouring a pair of spiders living in sin! At least I presume they are living in sin. Science is not yet sufficiently advanced to confirm or deny the existence of spider weddings.

Like this. But spiders.

I don't particularly like spiders. I don't kill them because I think their spider children will exact an awful vengeance, but I generally put a cup on them* and move them outside. (Daddy long-legs are OK because one or two of those in a room will keep away the worse spiders in some sort of Spider Gang Wars scenario.)

So when a large, black spider moved into the window-frame above my bed, it had to go.

However, when I was about to move it, the spider came out of its web and started traversing the window, straight towards my head! Because I am a rational adult I leapt out of bed, began brandishing a large novel and screeched, "Ooooooooo!" at the spider, which ignored me, scuttled neatly around the edge of its web checking for holes, and then went back to the top and disappeared. I thought that was kind of cute. I decided it could stay. So the spider and I lived under an uneasy truce.

Then it disappeared. I was terrified - the only thing worse than a large spider is a large spider that you can't find right now. So I slept in the lounge. I slept with the lights on. I slept with one eye open (metaphorically speaking because I can't actually do that, although I have a friend who was in the army and can now sleep with both eyes open, standing bolt upright and pretending to be on parade - sorry, digressing).

After two days of spiderless fear, I had a look at the web and presto! the spider was back... with a friend.

I thought, right, you spider, enough is enough. I was nice and I let you stay here and now this? I know how this goes. One of your friends moves in and then all of a sudden it's all-night spider parties and dismembered flies strewn across the lawn. No thank you. Tomorrow morning you are both going outside for good.

But then I told Mum about the new spider. Mistake!

She thought it was nice!
She thought they must be mates.
She thought that after all the bother my original spider had gone to in finding a boyfriend, bringing him home, and setting them up in a lovely web it was mean-spirited of me to kick them out into the cold to go and stay at some kind of spider hostel.
She said what if the lady spider was pregnant.
She didn't quite draw a parallel with the Spider Nativity, but it was close.

And so I gave in. I was soft-hearted in the face of spider love. And now my room is the site of a sordid spider love nest.

I mean... love web.

*Lived in a flat once that was rather prone to having large spiders - came home one day to a whopping spider stuck under a glass, and two male flatmates sitting on the couch, staring at it in horror. The third flatmate has found the spider, glassed it, and then left the house (nice). We sat for some time in dumbstruck terror before I finally manned up and decided to Move The Spider. When I slid a piece of paper under the glass, it didn't move! We had been paralysed for 20 minutes by the fear of a spider which was already dead.