PreTeena by Allison Barrows for September 06, 2020

Lived in a very tiny apartment for a while. Lots of spiders. Worse part of it was when they got in my shoes. Would use whatever was handy to kill them. They had a proper burial wrapped in tissue and flushed.

I capture them with a plastic cup and a piece of advertising cardboard that came in the mail. Then take them outside.

Spiders eat Roaches. When the roaches are consumed, the spiders will hunt elsewhere!

The things sisters bond over.. LOL!

I like having spiders in my apartment. It means they are hunting other nuisance insects which are much worse to have around.

We have a special little box that we use to catch spiders. My younger daughter has gotten really good at catching them; I watched one time as she literally talked the spider into getting into the box by itself.

My wife HATES my spiders in my computer room. I won’t let her touch them. They keep the mosquitoes at bay and never bother anyone.

I don’t like spiders and snakes. Wait, that was an old 70s song.

Those girls reaction is a learned trait, usually from their mothers. Thank God my wife is not one of those. She takes spiders outside, the jumping ones we allow in the house as they do a lot of good. Snakes, we’ve removed several corn snakes from our condo in Florida, after ensuring that’s what they were.

The last snake I had as a visitor left a present. Its skin. A nice one with a nicely formed head.

My wife insists that I kill spiders that are in the house (no problem with outside spiders). I really feel bad doing that, so if I can I always try to catch them first and release them outside. I remember as a kid hearing somewhere that “Spiders are our friends”.

My first cat used to stalk tarantulas, he’d to a high ballistic jump, and land straddling the with all four feet. The poor things died of shock! Then he took to hunting scorpions. He’d knock the tail off, then bring it home to play with on the tile floor in the kitchen. When he got tired of playing he’d SMACK the bug, and leave me an “exploded-view” scorpion to clean up.

When I was a child I captured a spider and a bumblebee in a small jar. The next day the Bumblebee was dead and the spider had turned white but was still alive.