I have strict rules when it comes to killing creepy crawling things. If you're outside, you're in their home and you leave them be unless they're biting you. Once they creep inside, however, it's your turf and you can swat at will without guilt. (These rules are especially verbal and repeated any time I have charge of little boys with squishing curiosities.)
There is one place, though, also considered my turf that the arachnid kind have not learned to keep clear of. My car!
There's nothing creepier than driving along at peace when suddenly eight squirmy legs start wiggling their way down the inside of the windshield, unannounced and quite repulsively! I've been in situations of this happening where I'm literally amazed I didn't take my own life (not to mention, the life of those in oncoming traffic) with my panicked fear-veering!
It's just plain dangerous. If you come in my car and compromise my safety with your grotesqueness, prepare to be squashed.
That is, until this past Friday.
I was eating in my car on my lunch break while quietly reading. It was a pleasantly mild day with a fair breeze and I was happy to be escaping my cubicle for an hour. Then it happened. On the driver's side of my dash, eight black and white striped legs crept out of the defrosting vents near the windshield totally harshing my mellow.
I hesitantly grabbed a tissue out of the box in the passenger seat and mentally prepared for the squishing sensation would come next. (I don't enjoy any squish. It's just one of those necessities that would ensure my safety four hours later when I'd be pulling into rush hour traffic and when my nemesis would be sure to reemerge.)
I reached with my tissue and he backed back down into the vent. Moments later he reappeared and I lunged even quicker but to no avail. We played this little song and dance a few more times and he started hiding out a little longer each time between rounds.
I really didn't want to kill him; to feel that smush, to have a nasty tissue with no place nearby to discard. I didn't want to half-squish him, leave that tissue in the car out of fear of littering, come back four hours later and find an empty tissue with only two legs left behind and live in fear of that mystery. And, quite frankly, I was beginning to admire his moxie.
This was a jumping spider, a breed common to our area. No bigger than a dime, but with thick strong bendy legs that are perfectly engineered for, yes, jumping! I started paying less attention to the article I'd been reading and more attention to the daymare fantasies of where and when he'd be springing to and from next, inducing the heart attack I was sure to have at some point that day.
But, he never did jump. He just patiently kept marching in and out of that air vent. Sometimes I'd just wave the tissue in a silly "hello" and that would be enough to send him back into retreat. It was a Vanity Fair article I'd been reading. An Obama profile with a side-by-side depiction of a U.S. Air Force navigator whose plane had been downed, leaving him stranded in the Libyan desert during Gaddafi's last days of terror. I began to see this spider in a less-creepy light. More like a soldier.
Sometimes when he'd emerge from the vent, I could see him spin like the turret of a tank. Looking east and west for any signs of escape but then spying me, still there, waving my tissue of death and he'd retreat once again.
I didn't want to be the enemy. Yes, he'd invaded my territory. But, I suddenly found myself wanting to be the innocent citizen who helped him find his escape out of the war zone.
So, I spent the rest of the hour patiently waiting on him to reappear and then guiding him little by little with an orange bookmark I had found (the sight of anything white or tissue-y at this point had him crying "uncle") I opened the two front windows, despite the chill of the strengthening winds outside. These were the goal lines. (I did not, however, open the sunroof, still scared of any eight-legged jumping near my face or hair.)
I was eventually able to guide him to the driver's side door. He missed the window completely, but I was able to swing the door open quickly enough for him to fall down out of the inside of the car and somewhere into the door joints. This would have to do for now. The hour was over and I was due back inside. Hopefully he had more options for escape in his current foxhole than he had in that vent-to-nowhere.
Sure enough, as five o'clock rolled around, I opened up the car to find him still clinging to the armpit of door. I brush him softly with my umbrella and saw him safely fall to the blacktop below.
Finally! The captive soldier has found freedom!
I backed out of my parking space, placing my sunglasses on quite smugly, when I was overwhelmed by the realization that there was an 85% chance our brave soldier was just squashed beneath my tire.
At least he went quickly! With no dirty tissue to leave any further dilemma.
Another mile down the road I squealed as a brown spider now scrambled across the top of my sunroof at a stop light. This one still outside for now. Still on his turf. Whether he blew off a mile further down the road or if he found his way quickly inside at my next stop remains unknown. He could have gotten where he was going or be seeking revenge for a fallen brother.
As of today, the spider treaty remains unsigned.
