Mrs. Spider

If there is one thing I can't tolerate it's the sight of spiders. I have THE worst case of arachnophobia you have ever seen in a person. It's awful. I think the fear of spiders might have came from the time when some of the neighborhood kids on my block held me down and let a daddy long leg crawl all over my back. Or maybe it was the time I fell down into a bush when I was 6 years old and felt a bunch of spiders crawling all over my arm. Either way, I've never had a good rapport with spiders. And ironically Atlanta is FULL of them!!! The spiders here are ginormous due to all the humidity and rain. It keeps them well fed with all the larger bugs that fall victim into their devious webs trapping them to their ultimate death. Being from California, we don't have very large spiders or bugs for that matter. Dry weather tends to keep them small and tolerable. Here though it's a very different story. Since I've been here, I've walked into huge webs that stretch across the parking lots, stairs, and trees. I've been bitten numerous times by tiny spiders and other bugs that seem to cross my path. It's times like these when I really wish the spider population didn't exist.

During my first week here, I took a walk onto The Tyger's balcony to check out the view and the weather. It was then that I noticed this decent size spider in the corner between the building and the sliding glass door. Of course, I freaked out and ran into the apartment yelling at The Tyger to kill it immediately. She goes out there and is like, "Oh yeah, it looks ok" and then nonchalantly walks back in. I was like, "KILL IT, KILL IT!!! PLEASE!!!" to which she replied with, "I dunno, I feel sort of guilty doing that. I mean, it's like murder isn't it?" Geez! I just couldn't see it from her point of view but I eventually gave up. I figured as long as it was outside, it was alright.

About a week after that, I noticed this round ball in the web. I called over the Tyger and she says, "Oh no! That's an egg sac!" That's when she took action and removed the egg sac from its web. We didn't want millions of baby spiders finding their way inside the apartment! Since that time, I've kept a closer eye on her to make sure she wasn't laying any more egg sacs. I made it a part of my routine to check up on it to see what it was up to. My routine soon became The Tyger's routine and next thing I know, we started calling her Mrs. Spider.


In the past month, she has caught many bugs including a 2 1/2 inch cockroach to which it took all day for her to suck it dry! Now, just like I'm freaked out by spiders, The Tyger HATES cockroaches so I guess Mrs. Spider is good for something. She has also laid a total of 5 egg sacs to which we have gotten rid of all of them. I guess in that sense we have murdered all of her children. I try not think about that as I sleep at night.

I got so curious about her that I decided to do some research. Like, how many egg sacs can a spider lay up to?? In my research I found out that female spiders have the ability to store sperm in a separate cavity built inside of them. When they're ready to lay their eggs, they release the sperm to fertilize them. We should be so lucky, huh? Basically, how many egg sacs they lay depends on the species. Some lay only one while others can lay up to about 4-5. I guess she had a lot of sperm stored in her! At least she was getting some action! Also, she is a kind of garden spider commonly found in the southern regions of the U.S. and harmless to humans if bitten. Great, at least I know I won't die!

Now that this spider has a name and we frequently check up on her, its become more of a pet. While in the beginning I was so gung-ho to kill that stupid eight-legged creature, now I would really miss her sitting in the corner if anything happened to her. I don't have it in me to kill her and would feel guilty if I did. I can't believe that I've adapted to having a "pet" spider on the balcony. Oh I'm still scared of her! Don't think I'm all laid back about the whole thing. But I will admit a part of me has grown an attachment to her.