The summer of 2018 rattled to a close and while society seemed to lament over the coming winter, I was content to spend a few months hibernating with my dogs.
Comet had completely recovered from his heartbreak. As a friend of mine said after his ordeal, as Comet rolled over happily for tummy scratches:
"Comet just needed to find his person" and he had found me.
Target was the same, if not calmer. His reactivity issues lessened, whether it was because of a change he had himself, or my decision to stop trying to make him "be like other dogs", I'll never really know for sure.
I immersed myself in border collie groups and sought out border collie humans.
Through my dogs I found my tribe.
We went for long walks and my life became a strictly regimented balancing act of working full time and working out dogs.
The Fall brought about a chance for relief. The boys always started to slow down in the winter, there would be less people out on the streets to contend with on our walks, and every once in awhile I could pull off an 8pm bedtime.
However, the approaching cold weather that drove us inside to the warmth was also driving other creatures inside with us. Namely, the wolf and common house spiders.
I have a reputation for being a well- rounded animal enthusiast. I wore the giant snake brought in for Show and Tell in the 4th grade, I was the proud owner of a Degu that looked enough like a rat to terrorize my mother for years. As a kid I was an avid horse back rider, as a teenager I wanted to breed rabbits (which never actually happened); and when I looked up at work to see a mouse sitting next to me watching me curiously, my only reaction was to say to him "you'd better not stick around here", before going back to my work.
So, it's often surprising for new friends to find out that I'm absolutely, without a doubt, petrified of big spiders. I'm not talking about the orb weavers with intricate patterns on their body's that build webs in my gardens or spindly daddy long legs that stilt across the blades of grass and fascinate Comet.
My fear is specific to the phantom shadows that float across the living room carpet when you're up at 2am watching a movie. To the spiders that have hinged legs and faces so visible, you can vaguely make out a little spider smile.
The ones big enough to have a personality. A personality that you can imagine may drive them to hold signs or wear t- shirts that say "when I grow up I want to attack Tokyo" or "I'm the star of Arachnophobia".
Having grown up in a house with a basement and spending my early 20's renting basement suites, spider infiltration was a fact of life. However, in the winter of 2018, while I was in the process of dropping a bucket over the first intruder of the year, it occurred to me that I had never lived in a basement suite alone before.
In all of my other past spider experiences there had been a variety of man-type human that would intercept my issue after the specimen was secured under a jar, bucket, or (in one instance) well placed baseball hat, and that issue would just magically disappear.
In the absence of Mantervention it occurred to me that, I wasn't entirely alone. After all, besides loyalty and companionship, there were other perks to having a house so full of animals that they fall out like a clown car when you open the front door.
Genius. Lift the bucket. Let the menagerie cleanse me of my eight-legged demons.
Yeah, not so much.
In her youth, Abby the cat had been a lethal huntress. She took the rogue house fly down with stealth and accuracy. She would scale the kitchen cabinets to knock the cat nip container off of the shelf and spend the afternoon rolling in the mess before decapitating a mouse toy and bringing me the head.
Now, at what is estimated to be 19 years of age, she had resigned to being a pampered, pillow, pet that only did what she wanted and you, as a human, were lucky if your desired activities matched up with hers.
Abby would always indulge my hysteria by looking very carefully at the spiders I had trapped, squishing her nose and then meowing at me as if to remind me,"Sorry, mom, I'm retired"
Occasionally, she would "tink tink" on the glass, sending me squealing from the room in case she tipped it and released, what now must be an angry vengeful spider.
After all, how long had it watched me from the shadows? Was I the person its parents warned me about? Did I vacuum up its brother?
Cooper the cat, was always a lover and never a fighter. He was always willing to give full-bodied kitten hugs and rub against my face to console me in my hour of need, but had no interest in fixing my problems for me.
The sympathetic, hard knocks cat:
"But, mama, if I do it for you, how will you ever learn?".
Comet and Target were equally as useless. As usual, Comet's puppy exuberance quashed any attempts at intervention.
Once, in his excitement to help he stepped on the spider, which disappeared into the pad of his paw and was never seen again. Leaving me a tragic, indecisive mess trying to figure out if I really wanted to investigate or leave the whole thing a mystery.
Target's attitude was either one of complete and utter, disconnected, indifference or sheer terror depending on the size of the spider. I could guess that there was a large spider in the house on the days I would come in from work and I'd nearly be bowled over by him when I opened the door.
He would make his escape to the far end of the garden where he'd plop down next to the gate and wait, watching the door for me to save him. Any attempt to get him to enter the house, no matter how firm or direct would result in Target groaning, grumbling and whining at me from his safe spot.
"Do you know what you're asking of me, mama?"
"Have you SEEN what's in there?"
"Please, don't make me do it"
For most of the season I had Mantervention. Between guy friends, friend's husbands, and neighbors it always seemed that somebody could pop around to rid me of my jars. If all else failed, I'd apologize to the jar from afar and use my vacuum attachment to suck them up.
I'd then have one of the above man-friends empty the vacuum bag when it was full.
(hey, don't look at me like that, if the spider is big enough to smile, it might be resilient enough to survive a vacuuming!)
One night, I was tidying up and piling the empty bottles in a red bag in the kitchen. Empty pop bottles are Target's favorite toy and even though he was listening to my sign to "leave it", the pressure was building for him to jump into the quickly expanding pile of plastic like a child jumping into a bunch of neatly stacked leaves.
Thinking it might be easier for him I went to move the bag onto the counter. I grabbed the handle of the red bag and as i swung it up, I caught a glimpse of a mammoth spider on the other side of the bag.
I screamed.
The swing up to the counter changed into a fling as I released the bag and retreated to the other side of the kitchen.
As the bag hit the cabinets, plastic bottles exploded all over the floor, Target couldn't contain himself any longer and dove towards the pile with Comet in hot pursuit.
I screamed every directional word I knew at Comet, sending him skidding to a halt, backing up and sitting on the rug, watching me in utter, tilted-head, confusion.
Target had already started to fling the bottles around and nose towards the bag. The spider had crawled around and was reading the name of the take out restaurant on the front of the bag, sounding out the letters with its spindly legs.
I started waving wildly trying to get Target's attention. He wildly tossed and crunched bottles, closer and closer to the enemy.
I was panicking and flailing. He was too close to the spider to grab, but far enough away that he wouldn't engage with my movements.
Finally, he noticed me. He turned his gaze towards me, eyes glistening with excitement. This was the best day of his life!
The only thing that would make it better for him?
If his mama played too!
He spun on a dime, his tail sweeping down and lifting the spider into his fluff and came charging for me.
There I am in my kitchen, with my dog coming for me panting, bucking and wagging with intense excitement, a Rider Spider in tow, locked in his beautiful tail... and I did what any sensible, rational mother would do.
I ran away.
With Target and now, Comet in hot pursuit I took off screaming down the hallway and slammed the bedroom door in their faces. For safety I stuffed pillows in the space under the door.
I don't care where you go spider, but you can't stay here.
I began to text furiously. Yes, to being a strong, independent, woman 98% of the time, but this time I needed Mantervention. This was a crisis!
As I waited for responses I listened at the door. Target and Comet were still there. I could hear them pacing and occasionally grumbling at each other trying to decide who was to blame:
"You threw the bottles!"
"Well, you chased her even though she told you to stay".
Comet, gently scratched at the door and whimpered. I imagined the spider whispering in his ear:
"Tell her you miss her! Target is picking on you and you just want a hug!"
I jumped when my phone rang. Man. Perfect. I told him the story.
"So right now... you... are?"
"Trapped in the bedroom"
"And Target and Comet... are?"
"Locked on the other side of the door"
"And... the spider is...?"
"Unknown"
"Uh huh... and your front door is...?"
Shit
"Locked"
I looked at my watch, it was almost 11pm. I had the locks changed in the summer and nobody had a spare set of keys.
"You could... try and climb in a window... or... um"
"Jules, you want me to come to your house, late at night and purposely break in, with your two big dogs, who don't know me that well loose in your kitchen, while you hide in the bedroom? I feel like that's a sure fire recipe for my death."
"Ya, you're probably right."
"K, I have to go, but call me in the morning. I have faith in you"
Damn, faith.
The sounds from the hall had diminished.
I carefully removed the pillows from the safety of the bed and peeked my head out of the door.
The hallway was empty. No dogs, no spider. I started to tip toe down the hallway, thought better and returned to the bedroom to put on socks.
Bare toes are the first things spiders look for when they come for you.
I checked the hallway again.
Still empty.
When I got to the kitchen, Target was lying down next to the pile of bottles and Comet was sitting in the living room staring at the spider, that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.
I grabbed a jar from the top of the fridge and tip toed towards it.
It wasn't moving at all.
Maybe it's dead. Died of natural causes. Nobody's fault, right?
I leaned as far towards it as possible without my feet coming close to it and dropped the jar over top.
As the jar came down over it, the spider started, jumping all eight legs out and sending me squealing onto the couch.
I spent a few minutes contemplating the vacuum cleaner. Why complicate a situation that has an easy fix?
But, it was against my nature to kill things. Even if I truly believed that the spider that rode my dog may very well be the one that survived a vacuuming.
A very close friend once told me that in the absence of an agreeable solution to a non life threatening problem, sleep on it.
So, I did. I tossed a tea towel over the jar to prevent Abby from knocking the jar over for fun (she's a cat after all, she IS a little evil) the dogs and I went to bed.
The next morning as the dogs and I were coming back from our walk, my neighbor was leaving his house with his dog.
Agreeable Solution.
He graciously rescued the Dog Rider and threw it out into the backyard (not before raising the covered jar to his eye and exclaiming "Whoa, that IS a big spider" while I convulsed in the corner)
That winter we accumulated many spider stories, none of which came close too our adventures that night.
While we had many opportunities for growth and self reflection, I can honestly say with no regret that nothing changed about my inability to deal with the spiders. It probably never will.
Needless to say, sometimes I still get the feeling that the infamous Dog Rider is watching my front door, waiting for his chance to get back in and have another try at the dog that got away.
x
"Comet just needed to find his person" and he had found me.
Target was the same, if not calmer. His reactivity issues lessened, whether it was because of a change he had himself, or my decision to stop trying to make him "be like other dogs", I'll never really know for sure.
I immersed myself in border collie groups and sought out border collie humans.
Through my dogs I found my tribe.
We went for long walks and my life became a strictly regimented balancing act of working full time and working out dogs.
The Fall brought about a chance for relief. The boys always started to slow down in the winter, there would be less people out on the streets to contend with on our walks, and every once in awhile I could pull off an 8pm bedtime.
However, the approaching cold weather that drove us inside to the warmth was also driving other creatures inside with us. Namely, the wolf and common house spiders.
I have a reputation for being a well- rounded animal enthusiast. I wore the giant snake brought in for Show and Tell in the 4th grade, I was the proud owner of a Degu that looked enough like a rat to terrorize my mother for years. As a kid I was an avid horse back rider, as a teenager I wanted to breed rabbits (which never actually happened); and when I looked up at work to see a mouse sitting next to me watching me curiously, my only reaction was to say to him "you'd better not stick around here", before going back to my work.
So, it's often surprising for new friends to find out that I'm absolutely, without a doubt, petrified of big spiders. I'm not talking about the orb weavers with intricate patterns on their body's that build webs in my gardens or spindly daddy long legs that stilt across the blades of grass and fascinate Comet.
My fear is specific to the phantom shadows that float across the living room carpet when you're up at 2am watching a movie. To the spiders that have hinged legs and faces so visible, you can vaguely make out a little spider smile.
The ones big enough to have a personality. A personality that you can imagine may drive them to hold signs or wear t- shirts that say "when I grow up I want to attack Tokyo" or "I'm the star of Arachnophobia".
Having grown up in a house with a basement and spending my early 20's renting basement suites, spider infiltration was a fact of life. However, in the winter of 2018, while I was in the process of dropping a bucket over the first intruder of the year, it occurred to me that I had never lived in a basement suite alone before.
In all of my other past spider experiences there had been a variety of man-type human that would intercept my issue after the specimen was secured under a jar, bucket, or (in one instance) well placed baseball hat, and that issue would just magically disappear.
In the absence of Mantervention it occurred to me that, I wasn't entirely alone. After all, besides loyalty and companionship, there were other perks to having a house so full of animals that they fall out like a clown car when you open the front door.
Genius. Lift the bucket. Let the menagerie cleanse me of my eight-legged demons.
Yeah, not so much.
In her youth, Abby the cat had been a lethal huntress. She took the rogue house fly down with stealth and accuracy. She would scale the kitchen cabinets to knock the cat nip container off of the shelf and spend the afternoon rolling in the mess before decapitating a mouse toy and bringing me the head.
Now, at what is estimated to be 19 years of age, she had resigned to being a pampered, pillow, pet that only did what she wanted and you, as a human, were lucky if your desired activities matched up with hers.
Abby would always indulge my hysteria by looking very carefully at the spiders I had trapped, squishing her nose and then meowing at me as if to remind me,"Sorry, mom, I'm retired"
Occasionally, she would "tink tink" on the glass, sending me squealing from the room in case she tipped it and released, what now must be an angry vengeful spider.
After all, how long had it watched me from the shadows? Was I the person its parents warned me about? Did I vacuum up its brother?
Cooper the cat, was always a lover and never a fighter. He was always willing to give full-bodied kitten hugs and rub against my face to console me in my hour of need, but had no interest in fixing my problems for me.
The sympathetic, hard knocks cat:
"But, mama, if I do it for you, how will you ever learn?".
Comet and Target were equally as useless. As usual, Comet's puppy exuberance quashed any attempts at intervention.
Once, in his excitement to help he stepped on the spider, which disappeared into the pad of his paw and was never seen again. Leaving me a tragic, indecisive mess trying to figure out if I really wanted to investigate or leave the whole thing a mystery.
Target's attitude was either one of complete and utter, disconnected, indifference or sheer terror depending on the size of the spider. I could guess that there was a large spider in the house on the days I would come in from work and I'd nearly be bowled over by him when I opened the door.
He would make his escape to the far end of the garden where he'd plop down next to the gate and wait, watching the door for me to save him. Any attempt to get him to enter the house, no matter how firm or direct would result in Target groaning, grumbling and whining at me from his safe spot.
"Do you know what you're asking of me, mama?"
"Have you SEEN what's in there?"
"Please, don't make me do it"
For most of the season I had Mantervention. Between guy friends, friend's husbands, and neighbors it always seemed that somebody could pop around to rid me of my jars. If all else failed, I'd apologize to the jar from afar and use my vacuum attachment to suck them up.
I'd then have one of the above man-friends empty the vacuum bag when it was full.
(hey, don't look at me like that, if the spider is big enough to smile, it might be resilient enough to survive a vacuuming!)
One night, I was tidying up and piling the empty bottles in a red bag in the kitchen. Empty pop bottles are Target's favorite toy and even though he was listening to my sign to "leave it", the pressure was building for him to jump into the quickly expanding pile of plastic like a child jumping into a bunch of neatly stacked leaves.
Thinking it might be easier for him I went to move the bag onto the counter. I grabbed the handle of the red bag and as i swung it up, I caught a glimpse of a mammoth spider on the other side of the bag.
I screamed.
The swing up to the counter changed into a fling as I released the bag and retreated to the other side of the kitchen.
As the bag hit the cabinets, plastic bottles exploded all over the floor, Target couldn't contain himself any longer and dove towards the pile with Comet in hot pursuit.
I screamed every directional word I knew at Comet, sending him skidding to a halt, backing up and sitting on the rug, watching me in utter, tilted-head, confusion.
Target had already started to fling the bottles around and nose towards the bag. The spider had crawled around and was reading the name of the take out restaurant on the front of the bag, sounding out the letters with its spindly legs.
I started waving wildly trying to get Target's attention. He wildly tossed and crunched bottles, closer and closer to the enemy.
I was panicking and flailing. He was too close to the spider to grab, but far enough away that he wouldn't engage with my movements.
Finally, he noticed me. He turned his gaze towards me, eyes glistening with excitement. This was the best day of his life!
The only thing that would make it better for him?
If his mama played too!
He spun on a dime, his tail sweeping down and lifting the spider into his fluff and came charging for me.
There I am in my kitchen, with my dog coming for me panting, bucking and wagging with intense excitement, a Rider Spider in tow, locked in his beautiful tail... and I did what any sensible, rational mother would do.
I ran away.
With Target and now, Comet in hot pursuit I took off screaming down the hallway and slammed the bedroom door in their faces. For safety I stuffed pillows in the space under the door.
I don't care where you go spider, but you can't stay here.
I began to text furiously. Yes, to being a strong, independent, woman 98% of the time, but this time I needed Mantervention. This was a crisis!
As I waited for responses I listened at the door. Target and Comet were still there. I could hear them pacing and occasionally grumbling at each other trying to decide who was to blame:
"You threw the bottles!"
"Well, you chased her even though she told you to stay".
Comet, gently scratched at the door and whimpered. I imagined the spider whispering in his ear:
"Tell her you miss her! Target is picking on you and you just want a hug!"
I jumped when my phone rang. Man. Perfect. I told him the story.
"So right now... you... are?"
"Trapped in the bedroom"
"And Target and Comet... are?"
"Locked on the other side of the door"
"And... the spider is...?"
"Unknown"
"Uh huh... and your front door is...?"
Shit
"Locked"
I looked at my watch, it was almost 11pm. I had the locks changed in the summer and nobody had a spare set of keys.
"You could... try and climb in a window... or... um"
"Jules, you want me to come to your house, late at night and purposely break in, with your two big dogs, who don't know me that well loose in your kitchen, while you hide in the bedroom? I feel like that's a sure fire recipe for my death."
"Ya, you're probably right."
"K, I have to go, but call me in the morning. I have faith in you"
Damn, faith.
The sounds from the hall had diminished.
I carefully removed the pillows from the safety of the bed and peeked my head out of the door.
The hallway was empty. No dogs, no spider. I started to tip toe down the hallway, thought better and returned to the bedroom to put on socks.
Bare toes are the first things spiders look for when they come for you.
I checked the hallway again.
Still empty.
When I got to the kitchen, Target was lying down next to the pile of bottles and Comet was sitting in the living room staring at the spider, that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.
I grabbed a jar from the top of the fridge and tip toed towards it.
It wasn't moving at all.
Maybe it's dead. Died of natural causes. Nobody's fault, right?
I leaned as far towards it as possible without my feet coming close to it and dropped the jar over top.
As the jar came down over it, the spider started, jumping all eight legs out and sending me squealing onto the couch.
I spent a few minutes contemplating the vacuum cleaner. Why complicate a situation that has an easy fix?
But, it was against my nature to kill things. Even if I truly believed that the spider that rode my dog may very well be the one that survived a vacuuming.
A very close friend once told me that in the absence of an agreeable solution to a non life threatening problem, sleep on it.
So, I did. I tossed a tea towel over the jar to prevent Abby from knocking the jar over for fun (she's a cat after all, she IS a little evil) the dogs and I went to bed.
The next morning as the dogs and I were coming back from our walk, my neighbor was leaving his house with his dog.
Agreeable Solution.
He graciously rescued the Dog Rider and threw it out into the backyard (not before raising the covered jar to his eye and exclaiming "Whoa, that IS a big spider" while I convulsed in the corner)
That winter we accumulated many spider stories, none of which came close too our adventures that night.
While we had many opportunities for growth and self reflection, I can honestly say with no regret that nothing changed about my inability to deal with the spiders. It probably never will.
Needless to say, sometimes I still get the feeling that the infamous Dog Rider is watching my front door, waiting for his chance to get back in and have another try at the dog that got away.
x
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