If you live in Missouri, then you have probably heard of the Brown Recluse Spider. Every spring, when I retrieve my grass-cutting tennis shoes from the back of the closet, I take them outside and bang them against the step a few times – just in case this poisonous spider has set up house inside my old shoes. We pay a guy to spray for creepy crawlies every quarter, but it doesn’t kill all of them.
Early this morning, I walked to the kitchen and slid open the patio doors to let our old poodle outside. A Brown Recluse clung to the door – at eyeball height. Before I could reach the fly swatter, the spider ran down the door and into hiding. I closed the door quickly. I needed time to think.
I was 100% sure that the spider was hiding on the other side of the door, probably in the exterior track for the sliding screen. Sure enough, there was a spider web in the lower left corner of the patio doors, between the glass and the screen.
Suddenly, I freaked out. I looked down at my fluffy slippers and kicked them off. I knew the spider wasn’t hiding in them, but I couldn’t help it. The thought itself made me crazy. I ran my hands up and down the arms of my bathrobe. Immediately, I felt the urge to shed another outer layer – just in case the spider-that-couldn’t-possibly-be-on-me was hiding in the plush robe.
I tossed the robe over a kitchen chair and studied the spider web on the other side of the glass. Where could that thing have gone? Okay, you’re just being crazy now, I told myself. I reached for my bathrobe and sheepishly slipped it on again. The tag at the back of my neck rubbed against my skin, and I spastically tossed the robe back over the chair and stepped away from it.
As much as I wanted to forget about the stupid spider, I couldn’t. Our dogs go in and out of that door multiple times each day. Sometimes I’m the one opening the door. Sometimes it’s my daughter. I could not live with the thought of a poisonous Brown Recluse just hanging around the door, waiting.
I’d probably see the spider before it saw me. But my daughter was oblivious to it, and I wanted her to stay oblivious. Fear is not fun.
So, I took the fly swatter and slowly slid the door open. Hiding at the base of the door, between the glass and the sliding screen, was the spider. I could get him right now. Take care of this menace immediately. But if I wasn’t careful, I could frighten the spider into scurrying inside the house.
Armed with a fly swatter and a surge of adrenaline, I made war on the arachnid. I won.
It was time to wake my daughter up and tell her to get ready for school. I walked down the hall and opened her door. “Time to get up, Sweetie.” She mumbled a reply and I closed her door. She emerged from her room soon after that and walked to the patio door to let her labradoodle outside. I sipped my coffee and leaned against the kitchen counter.
And I thought of Mary, Our Mother. I wondered if she had smashed any potentially harmful predators while I slept peacefully last night. If I were a betting woman, I would put my money on it.
Our Lady of Perpetual Help… thank you for going to battle for my safety. Amen.
I have a visual, Denise! ha-ha I would be the same way!
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