According to my son, this animal is not harmful to humans. So go ahead. Stick out your hand.
GateHouse — So I’ve found spiders crawling on me twice today.
Small spiders, sure. Un-fatal spiders, I think, although it can be hard to tell because spiders are cunning and often disguise themselves as non-fatal spiders in order to sneak into places and sometimes pass through airport security.
But twice I have looked down upon my own shirt to find myself being traversed by something with body sections, multiple legs and venom — or, if not venom, at least pincers, which is basically scientific code-word for “venom.” Either way this is not going to mean anything very positive for my evening’s sleep schedule.
Now, I pride myself on being powerfully and masculinely unafraid of most things, including inventing adverbs for pointless jokes. Most things, that is, except for spiders. And the at-least-two snakes who live in my backyard now. And that skywalk thing with the glass floors on the 750th story at the former Sears Tower in Chicago. Also, the spectral librarian from “Ghostbusters” and those dreams about rollercoasters and clowns. Otherwise, I’m good.
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The spider thing, of course, is old. Even when I was little I would regard those little bits of insect-based trivia — “The average human will, in a year, while he is sleeping, consume 3,500 spiders” — not as endearing minutiae but damning evidence at the failure of mankind, which invented spray-on sunscreen (and butter) and cloud computing and for at least a few years gave a damn about space exploration, to prevent something so obviously problematic as INSECTS CRAWLING INTO YOUR MOUTH AT NIGHT. Recently my 7-year-old has begun telling me, several times a day, that tarantulas may look scary but aren’t poisonous to humans, as if the only logical response could possibly be, “Really? Well, my goodness, let’s get immediately to PetSmart and pick up 12 of them, as well as a cage with no sides on it!”
(This is true: I just bumped the mouse and the cursor arrow reappeared and it looked sort of like a bug and I MIGHT HAVE JUMPED A LITTLE BIT because now I’m basically seeing bugs everywhere out of the corner of my eye and in my peripheral vision and most of them are not real bugs and one of them was a bottle of ketchup.)
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Anyway, things took a turn in college. One day a spider found its unfortunate way into my freshman-year English class and — I’ll never forget this as long as I live — one of my classmates confronted the spider, gently scooted it onto a piece of notebook paper and announced her intention to take it down three flights of stairs and return it to the out-of-doors, where it would once again be free (and, having successfully escaped the English building, maybe pick a major that made it some money). And I remember, clear as yesterday, thinking one thing: “What in the HELL is wrong with you, hippie, smoosh the damn spider with your sandal made out of pot or whatever and let’s get on with it, these Chaucer metaphors aren’t going to identify themselves.”
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Related, sort of
• Well, I either have bedbugs or someone dropped an awful lot of raisins in here
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That was college, so it was, whatever, 42 years ago. Yet I am disappointed to announce today the same sort of inexplicable incense-flavored hippieness has invaded my own home, because on both occasions two separate people ushered my shirt-spiders to safety, basically escorting them out the door with the sort of VIP treatment that would probably embarrass the Dalai Lama, who, I have it on good authority, in the same situation would smash the spiders Tibets. Please tell me someone out there liked that one.
So here is my question to you, Faithful Readership, and by that I mean the people who have arrived at my blog searching for “jeff gay wizard” or “wearing salmon colored pants”: Is this normal? Is essentially assisting a massive evil disease-carrying spider across the street normal behavior these days? Because I’ve gotta tell you, it seems a pretty huge time investment for something that could be easily accomplished with a decent squish. In the meantime, I will be online investigating the meaning of clown dreams, although only on pages that don’t have pictures on them.
I'm a a writer for such outlets as Men's Health, South Magazine, Nickelodeon's 
July 19th, 2011 at 9:46 am
We have a rule at our house: if something is living inside the house that is not a cat or a human, it can be euthanized (preferably by a cat). If it is living outside (like, say, in my tiny garden) it is left alone.
I have heard people say to leave the spiders alone (even in the house) because they eat the other bugs, but my question is this: If the “other” bugs are undesirable, what does that make a fat, dumb, and happy spider?
July 19th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
These are good rules, and I am writing them down. Note that in college we made @mke do most of the major bug-killing. Just throwing that out there.
July 19th, 2011 at 10:33 am
Squish ‘em ! There are more of them than us !
GSV
July 19th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Wow. I have a lot of parents commenting on this one
July 19th, 2011 at 11:04 am
It took me a minute but I got it:)
July 19th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
#jokegrenade
July 19th, 2011 at 3:16 pm
Smiled all through the article, laughed and still smiling about the Dalai Lama smashing the spiders Tibets.
July 19th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
YES. I KNEW SOMEONE OUT THERE WOULD LIKE THAT JOKE. NOT MORE THAN ONE PERSON, BUT SOMEONE
July 19th, 2011 at 3:39 pm
Tibets is the price of a shave and a haircut. #punwar
July 19th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Good God. I surrender.
July 19th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
I search for “salmon-colored pants” daily. I think I know a newsroom where you can find a pair.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:22 am
JENNY LIMFABER, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN. #feech
July 19th, 2011 at 9:34 pm
1. Loved the Dalai Lama joke a little Tibet. What, not good enough for you? Feh.
2. Same rule as Du said: Outside, they’re good. Inside, something that is not physically attached to me is going to have a smashing good time. Get it? Eh. For instance, today, I saw a probably dime-sized (including legs) little black feller in our basement. After seeing the body shape, and concluding from approximately 3 miles away that it was not a black widow, I proceeded to usher it out. Of this mortal coil. With a nearby (1.5 miles) shoe. And paint can. Because I just know that one of those eight eyes was looking at me cross.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:23 am
PAINT CAN. Nice. You were sending a message to its spider brethren back at base, weren’t you.
July 19th, 2011 at 11:32 pm
My logic is all screwed up regarding spider squishing. Basically I kill the small ones without so much as a moral “should I?” twitch, but if they’re bigger than, say, a quarter, if they’ve got some heft to them, I can’t bring myself to do it. Grosses me out to think of flattening something I’ll actually FEEL on the bottom of my shoe or whatever. So the big, hairy, I-can-see-it-looking-right-at-me, venom-filled monsters that should DIE DAMMIT simply because I’m higher up on the food chain (AND ABOUT A MILLION TIMES BIGGER), those are the ones I scoot away from or politely usher out the door.
July 20th, 2011 at 9:24 am
Did you have this same problem with Palmetto Bugs while you were here? There are, I think, definitely different rules regarding Things That Splatter. For this reason I usually go on bug hunts with both an old Doc Martens boot from 1994 (I cannot deny that it doesn’t have “Alice In Chains” or “NOFX” painted on the side), and a mop. A large mop.
July 20th, 2011 at 3:44 am
wow, i think, all is a try of person. if we try again then we can. Try for life, try for best.
July 20th, 2011 at 7:32 am
Ah that one is looking bad. I am from the people who are really getting crazy when they see a sider especially that one and hairy. Really can’t understand a friend of mine who has such as a home pet
July 20th, 2011 at 12:47 pm
By reading this article, there is no option other than laughing.
July 25th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Why thank you, Supercuts
July 24th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
“…spiders Tibets.” Sounds delicious!
July 25th, 2011 at 3:15 pm
They’re spicier than you think, but it’s the crunch that really draws you in!
August 30th, 2011 at 3:01 pm
[...] I realize this is the second childish spider-related column in a few weeks for you regular readers — and hello again to Mom and whoever keeps coming across [...]
September 17th, 2011 at 6:05 pm
whack every time lol im terrified of those big garden spiders i had one drop on my shoulder you could hear my screams in outer space lol squish every time i normally get out of the room till its caught xxjen
September 19th, 2011 at 9:08 am
wait, it dropped on your shoulder? I would literally still be flailing my arms and running through the British countryside
January 10th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Here’s why you should never kill a spider: contrary to popular belief, spiders aren’t usually the culprits when people wake up and find a “spider bite.” In fact, whatever bites you when you’re sleeping would most likely have been eaten by the spider, if you hadn’t killed it first. I learned this from an entomology professor in college. Spiders will protect you against other insects that actually want to bite you; they almost never bite people unless cornered (or you accidentally trap them in your bedding and they can’t get away from you). And sorry for putting that in your head. I’m sure your bedding is fine.
January 11th, 2012 at 11:57 am
Renee, this is excellent academic news and I’m glad that you shared it, and I will never ever get that image of trapped spiders out of my head. CALLING PEST CONTROL AT ONCE
May 19th, 2012 at 2:35 am
all of this was very entertaining thank you so much. lmao. but I am not a huge fan of spiders either actually I dont care for any creepy crawly on me. I am a very masculine man also .but i dont get in there dance space and they dont get in mine. got it. or there can be only one. and well Im at the top of the food chain. otherswise I generally leave them alone. untless im in a mood and well they go one way or another.
May 20th, 2012 at 9:04 pm
Thanks for stopping by, Scottie. I find that’s the most popular answer so far: Leave them be if you can, but if you can’t, squash the stuffing out of them with one of your shoes
May 19th, 2012 at 9:59 pm
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