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The Spiders recognise me

[ 4 minute read ] - 280 words per minute

Opinion

Spiders are strange things. I am sure they really do have a 'mind' to live among us. If you keep throwing a particular one out; by that I mean the same one, it comes to recognise it should wait until you have looked at it for a long moment, and then gone away for a glass and a piece of card. Then it will run like the wind for the hills (a safe place that is hidden from human eyes). Of course that is if the same one has come back into your home. New spiders just freeze where you find them; on the bathroom floor; on the ceiling; or among your clothes, until you come back and gently encase them in the glass. Essentially, I am suggesting that the spiders in my home have memory and are capable of learning, which I suppose goes hand in hand really. My behavioural psychology knowledge mental library has a gap on the shelf where that knowledge should be. Let me see; was the mental book checked out and never returned? Did I read about behavioural psychology and my mental library is crumbling through poor maintenance. I am afraid I keep poor mental records which might also have been contaminated, so...it's back to school for me. Fortunately, I have real books on psychology in my real five shelf library.

I have a history of mis-treating spiders but I also have a conscience that allows me to recognise and remember being dismissive of them and acting as a despot might. 'This is my domain and all creatures within it shall obey me'. However, I am moving towards understanding King Cnut, who sought to prove that even he cannot control the tide. The truth is, I don't want to seek out the spiders' food source. I am supposing that Giant House Spiders, which I think are the really big ones, eat insects and meaty crunchy things. 

Yesterday, there was a Giant House Spider, under some clothes on the floor, that was so big that it only just fitted inside the circumference of a glass with a diameter of six and a half centimetres. I had to poke its legs in with a pencil. It was so big I swear I heard it hit the ground outside my bedroom window. Believing that spiders have memories, I also have to believe that I spent too much time examining it under the glass. I think I should have worn a mask or a disguise because with eight eyes it had a good look at me, for sure. Giant House Spiders are not one of 'the three' most venomous spiders in the UK with fangs that can penetrate human skin, but they can run across your face while you sleep. The question I have to ask myself is, can it reason out that I am asleep and it has a fairly long time to scurry away before my arm instinctively moves towards my face to address the tickle; or does it have a personality that might include an attitude of laissez-faire and forgiveness. I am acting inconsistently because I threw a big one out and left a smaller one alone. I suppose I have a threshold for size in my head and once that is breached I have to remove the imagined threat. Instinctive as it may be, I think I can override it to some extent.

I looked around my home for the usual spiders. There are a few Cellar Spiders scattered throughout and I think that's a small House Spider in the kitchen. I have noticed less single threads across the doorways that brush across my face first thing in the morning. I can't identify the really small spiders; they might just be baby big ones. The smaller of the two Giant House Spiders is smart, even though it didn't see its colleague get caught with a glass placed over it, it has, in plain view, positioned itself behind an used television coaxial lead that hangs from the ceiling. It will be hard to capture it without alerting it to my intent beforehand; to whit, I have to move the coaxial lead first.  It let me measure it at 45mm. Yesterday it was, in plain view, on the other side of the room, where two walls join. Is it telepathic? Or did I not give off an attack smell. Certainly, it knew the flavour of the air near it changed just now. Oh, I so hope that spiders realise I am not aggressive, only instinctively worried.

House Spiders die if you put them outside, so the big one is probably already dead. I feel sorry for it, but would I call it back and welcome it in? No, and that decision will haunt me for the rest of my days; I know that because the one I squashed three years ago, that looked like a Black Lace Weaver Spider, one of 'The Three' that ran up my leg asking for help after I sprayed it with permithrin in my bathroom, still plays on my mind. At least I think it was asking for help and wasn't aiming for my jugular. I mean, after it had watched me for weeks taking showers, how creepy can it be? Right? 

I have been bitten by a spider and it ran away to tell the tale. It was in bed with me one cold winter morning. It hurt, a lot; not dissimilar to a mild bee-sting that built in intensity to a point at which I thought it might not stop building; somewhere close to my pain threshold, but it not being a bee or wasp, and with having no experience of spider bites, I was alarmed by the intensity. The bite mark occasionally itched for four years afterwards. I think it was a lucky strike because it seems that the skin over my pelvis is thinner than most other places on my body, and so its fangs were long enough.

I am going to leave the 45mm Giant House Spider alone until I see it on my pillow; but it is too clever to be seen there. I am fairly sure they are nocturnal and of course, it knows if I am asleep or not. I really am convinced they have more intelligence than I ever considered them to have years ago. Saying that though, I remember when houseflies would just sit on the wall, rubbing their front feet together and smoothing out their proboscis ; now they are frenetic and all excited and stuff - they have evolved into teenagers from sedentary elderly creatures. (about 08:30 am)

10:25 a.m. Don't you just hate it when spiders try to second-guess you? The 45mm Giant House Spider has upped and moved away somewhere. If it is trying to be kind, you know, out of sight is out of mind, it is not working. Now I have to check inside my shoes and shake my clothes before putting them on. The overwhelming issue for me with Giant House Spiders is that that they are really, really fast runners. Yesterday, the 65mm Giant House Spider didn't run away when I found it under my clothes but I cannot help thinking that this 45mm one might make a break for it; after all, it waited until I was not watching before it hid itself, and it knows the other one is missing. 

11:58 am. I didn't have to look far for the 45mm Giant House Spider; it had gone back to its favourite corner and hidden behind a large mirror leaning against the wall. It may be lonely because the mirror faces the wall and it would definitely be able to see its reflection. I shall leave the window open to see if the bigger female comes back.

   The last 'chapter' of the Spirit and Alien Party story has been uploaded as a docx file in the post entitled Spirit and Alien Party, with the tags spirit party, spirit and alien party

Spiders like me

[ 4 minute read, at 259 words per minute ]

I have just watched a Thunderfly meander across my view inside the screen of my laptop. I hope there is not a nest of them gathered around the CPU.

Spiders seem to like me and come to me for help. Yesterday one came over to me unsolicited. As predators, we are attracted by movement. However, we tend to filter out little jerky movements; otherwise we would always be frightened of leaves trembling in a light wind. Spiders, with their eight legs cause their bodies to move smoothly but with jerky leg movements. I think that is what is so scary for many people; it is something we simply do not experience in combination in nature in our safe homes. I suggest that if we have an expensive analogue watch with a sweeping second hand and a clunky minute hand that changed position once every minute, we would be scared of our watch.

There are three spiders, I think, in the UK that will bite us and it will hurt. I have been bitten by two of them. However, the spider I saw yesterday was either a House Spider or a Cardinal Spider, I think. It was a BIG Giant House Spider. It came running towards me across the floor on my right side. My peripheral vision picked it up as a threat, just as it should be considered to be. 

       'Hey, Big Guy!' It might have been saying that. However, I tend to think it was about to run up my bare leg and up to my face. I wouldn't have liked that.

I rather think spiders might be more intelligent than we give them credit for. Garden Spiders also come into our homes and are friendly. I don't know anyone that has been bitten by a Garden Spider, but any kind of tickle on my legs is an alarm call to me that I am about to be bitten by a fly of some kind. Sometimes, European Hornets angrily bump into me, even at three in the morning. You can hear them loudly beat their wings and they just fly straight into you with a significant bump. 

Once the Giant House Spider knew I had seen it, it stopped about three feet (one metre) away from me. Seeing that I stood up, it moved to one side, right up to my shoes, which I wasn't wearing, out of the way when I went into the kitchen. It didn't try to hide, or run away though. It didn't seem to be in the mood for fun, like some spider-rascals are; nor did it show that it was scared because all its legs were touching the floor. 

I fetched a mug, and a piece of card to gather it up, expecting that it would have moved on and I would have to hunt for it. But, it was patiently waiting for me to come back. It hadn't even turned round to watch me. I couldn't help thinking that it was expecting to being handled and wanted to go back outside.

The mug was too small to completely cover it. It obligingly pulled in a couple of legs and I trapped it. (I have just now measured the diameter of the mug I used - 7.5cm or 3 inches). 

With the card slid under it, I carried it to a window and threw it out; just like it has been thrown out countless times before. I think I might even recognise it, except it is always bigger than last time. It scampers in the front door sometimes, because there is a good hunting ground for it right outside and I suspect it just wants some shade, and maybe eat some house-spiders or the numerous long-bodied cellar spiders in my home, or something.

I hope it comes back. They can die outside in some weather conditions.

I know that many people are scared of spiders, so I won't tell you about the one in my bed that bit my hip three years ago. I will tell you that it hurt for a full week that had me eating paracetamol daily, and then for the next week, before I forgot it. I have been stung by a bumble bee, a wasp, a hornet, this spider, and bitten by ants. In terms of immediate pain the hornet wins; in terms of consistent pain, the little 2cm spider in my bed, wins by far. The black woolly caterpillar, whichever kind it is, hurts as well.

The reason I think spiders are clever is because there was a black one that looked like one that might try to bite me, in my bathroom. It kept getting into a little crevice where I couldn't reach it. Eventually I called on my friend, Permithrin, which lives in an aerosol can labeled insect killer.

I stayed in the bathroom doing something else and then went into my living room. At the time, I was wearing cargo trousers and checked the side pocket for anything that might in in it, by putting my hand on the outside of it. I felt wriggling and cupped the spider in my hand (very, very briefly). It had scampered out of the crevice, down the wall, across the bathroom floor, over my socked foot, and up the outside of my trousers (thank goodness). Permithrin will kill spiders, insects and goldfish. Plainly, this spider was asking for my help. Spiders do not run towards humans with binocular vision unless they are going to attack. Ah, maybe it thought, 'If I am going, I am going to take you with me.' But, I don't think so. I don't think spiders are so intelligent that they know we use chemicals to kill them. I think it thought it had just been poisoned somehow.

       'Help me!'

I threw it on the floor and hit it with a wooden spoon. I think it was one of the UK indigenous spiders with a painful bite. I feel immense guilt for killing it. It could have been asking for help. I panicked. I looked up what it might have been and settled on either a Green-fanged Tube Web Spider, or a Black Lace Weaver Spider, but it could have been a less venomous Mouse Spider, I suppose.

A couple of young Queen ants have looked at me funny too.

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