He was a spider with a goal.
2006-04-12, 2:43 p.m.

I�ve been inspired to write about spiders today. Here�s my story:

This morning, as I do every morning, I opened up the back door and let Miss Piper out for her morning toilette. Our back door drops about 2 feet to the ground, because we don�t have the back deck built yet.

PATIENCE, LAURA! It will get built. It�s DW�s fault.

Anyway, we have a little temporary wooden step thing that I stand on while the dogs pee, so my delicate little feets won�t have to touch the ground. I stood there on my little step stool platform, surveying my domain, master of it all, and noticed a large, black spider wandering around on the threshold next to me.

Not to worry. Spiders are very common for us, and I don�t usually kill them because Spiders Are Our Friends. Although it�s apparently no longer in print, and not available at Amazon, that�s the first book I remember checking out from my elementary school library in first grade, from the librarian with the most kickass name in library history: Charlotte Weber, and it made a BIG impression on me.

So anyway, I�m not much into killing my friends, especially my friends the spiders. However, if they encroach into spaces they are not invited to share with me and my bare feet, I sometimes take matters into my own hands, or usually, shod feet.

Once, there was a really large wolf spider that seemed to think its new home should be under the bed, right under me where I sleep. I would find him lounging on my slippers in the morning, and then one day, those pink fuzzy slippers turned on him and dispatched him handily. Or footily I should say.

We had a smaller one hanging out on the bathroom floor for a few days, where I like to walk around barefoot, sometimes in the middle of the night in the dark, so I had to get rid of him, too.

You can see that this leaves me feeling a bit guilty, because I remember these incidents and can pinpoint the location and offense of the two spiders I have killed intentionally.

We need to add a third spider to my kill list.

This morning, I noticed the rather largish black spider scurrying about on the threshold, and then I noticed him standing up with several of his feet against the door, like the dogs do when they want in.

When I opened the door to let myself and Piper back inside, that spider RAN in, like he had a need to get in the house, and he knew exactly where he needed to go to carry out his mission.

He was a spider with a goal, and that goal included getting in the house, so I did what anybody would do: I squashed him. I then apologized to him, but dude, when you�re a spider and you HAVE to get into my house, I can only assume that you intend to spin a huge, human-sized web, trap us and our pets, and then feast upon our bodily fluids.

And I�m sorry, but I�m still using my fluids.

I�m only thinking of the person who would discover our desiccated bodies suspended in the air in web-hammocks, a REALLY big spider hovering next to us, sucking humanflesh from his teeth. That person would be traumatized, not to mention the crushing guilt of poor Don, our Varmint Whisperer. It�s his job to keep our bug population down to a manageable number, and if he had allowed a spider to slaughter us all, he would be really sad, and it would look really bad on his resume.

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SFK, you crack me up with your wondering how my mind works, and then your resolution to send comments only via USPS in the future. Yes, sex and poop. I like it when the comments are funnier than the original entry.

Do you people see why I depend on you?

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Wanna see a picture of me that I got in the mail from some work colleagues? I got this in the mail with no note, no memo, nothing. Maybe it is intended as blackmail. Maybe I should paste this into my resume.

I am so smart! SMRT!

This is a picture of a picture, so you see how stellar the quality is. This is me giving a speech at an event, outdoors, squinting, and mid-word. Please notice that I�m showing lots of tooth. I love how the photographer caught me making such a pretty face. It makes people laugh right out loud at me when they see this pretty picture.

I also love recreating that face for my co-workers. Like this:

Don�t you wish you worked here?