Days of our Spiders

I've been spending a lot of time at home this summer because I only had to teach one course online. When you're home alone for as long as I am, you may get a little stir crazy. One way I've kept myself entertained is by making up names and situations for the daddy long legs that have gotten into the house. I haven't seen daddy long legs in these numbers since my parents and I lived in a house in Missouri right next to a forest. While my suburban tendency would be to kill them all, I have spared them and enjoyed their bug-eating company.

There are daddy long legs all over the outside of our home, and I guess to keep warm on 100+ degree days, they have been huddling themselves together.

Spider huddle!

They also creepily look in the glass panes that are on either side of our front door. A few have made their way into the house and set up bug-eating shop on my ceiling. While my normal reaction would be to reintroduce these guys to their maker, I have become a softy and a budding spider drama novelist. These are the days of our spiders.....

The first daddy long legs we found was in our bathroom. His life was spared due to my lack of height, and the longer he stayed, the more I grew used to him. Yes, it was a little frightening that he was always hovering over the part of the bathroom I needed to use, but he seemed sure-footed. He became Aragorn after my husband confused spider and strider. A jealous daddy long legs tried to come and unseat Aragorn, but this spider, who we named Boromir, unfortunately came into the bathtub and suffered a watery death. Aragorn reigned supreme for about another week, but unfortunately, he met his end last night. He wasn't in the bathroom when I took a shower last night, which worried me. I was even more worried (ie frightened to death) when I found him chilling in my sink. I figured he'd return to his rightful place, but I found him dead on our jacuzzi this morning. Who knows if he was poisoned, batted to death by my cat, or killed off by old age. I have my theories..... RIP Aragorn.

These three are currently in my office. Notice their love for huddling. When there were just two, my husband and I referred to them as Peter Parker and Mary Jane. A third, Octavius, entered the scene and a few days later had joined the huddle. I'm not quite sure how their story will unfold, but I will probably watch as I prepare syllabi and my fall online course over the next couple weeks.

I'm pretty sure I've guaranteed that no one will ever visit my house again.......