“There’s a spider in the bathroom,” Tom yelled from
the back of the house.
“Get rid of it,” I said, entering the room.
Spiders in Florida can be anything from a docile
daddy-long-legs to a wolf spider or tarantula.
Since Tom was brushing his teeth, I grabbed a Kleenex and
gently picked up the harmless spider, its body no larger than a pea.
In our home, I’m The Obliterator. I’ve had plenty of previous
experience in our former home in California, killing things.
The biggie for me was a rat [I think] that had invaded our home
from the garage. We lived on a hillside, so critters
would sometimes find their way into the house.
Its evidence was of course, droppings, but also, long claw rips
in my clothing. The rat must have trapezed across the rack of
clothing--it had laid a series of Jack The Ripper scars along the
fabric of several of my jackets and blouses.
His adventuring was short-lived.
It’s funny how a spider elicits a “kill” response, yet if
a deadly and venomous snake is found in the garage or
yard, like the recent juvenile Eastern Diamondback,
the response from the men in my family is ”Don’t kill it!”
The snake had a definite attitude, but it was removed with a broom.
The juvenile Eastern Diamondback found a week ago in
the garage, may have been the same one that was found dead in
the gutter a few days ago. Someone had whacked it .
There’s probably many more juvenile snakes from that snake’s
family which are waiting to slither onto our property.
I’ve been told for every quarter acre in our community,
there are at least 200 coral snakes.
I killed my first, and I hope last, coral snake almost a year ago.
As long as there's a reptile or arachnid that has the potential
for a deadly attack, I won't bat an eyelash killing it.
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