The Recluse & the Huntsman

Ever have one of those mornings? My routine calls for making my bed first, so I had just drawn the doona (comforter) over the top of the covers and was walking around to straighten everything when I felt it.

I live in Australia, and we have the most, highly poisonious critters in the world, so you are ALWAYS alert. It was a spider web. And from its position, it could only mean that I had shared my bed with the spider (now of course missing).

The Huntsman

I lived in Okinawa Japan for some time and it was a cultural awakening for me in more ways than I could ever imagine. One thing I discovered was gigantic bugs including huntsmen spiders that were the fastest running insect in the world – the equivalent of 35 miles per hour!

The floors throughtout the entire house were chocolate linoleum (you know so the four- to six-inch, flying cockroaches were more able to hide when you ran after them with passion and one slipper). I gingerly walked out one night very late to make a quick trip to the bathroom. Once in there I was confronted by a flying cockroach of monstrous proportions and screamed into the souless night for help. Then ran into the living room to stand ceremoniously on a chair. What was I thinking?

I was screaming for help when I noticed it….a huntsman who casually walked to the middle of the now back-lit door way from the bathroom to the chair I was standing on and like in the movie High Noon, he stood there. Fiddling I imagine with his poison filled side arm, twirling it to ensure I knew I was definitely in trouble.

Now I really screamed and started jumping up and down in the chair (what was I thinking) and watched completely mesmerised as this amazingly large, hand-sized brown, hairless spider caught me in its fractiled gaze.

Two legs raised from the floor to salute me and then it took off straight for me at full speed. There was no possible escape as I stood transfixed to the spot. Just as it would have pounced on me, a broom came smashing down upon it. Whew that was close.

The Recluse

Back in the USA, under more civilised conditions the man in my life went off on a Air Reserve exercise one day. He came home ten days later than expected, chauffered in a bright white "limosine" that looked very much like an ambulance. His right thigh was still almost twice the size of the other from the hidden and quietly painless bite of a recluse spider that had wound its way carefully up his pants leg -- biting him on the front of his thigh (sparing more important parts of his body from this amazing and very painful process).

When the brown recluse spider bites, it leaves a venom in the wound that begins to break down and sort of melt the tissue. It seems like a little mosquito bite at first. By then the culprit is long gone. Then itching and reddness. Then a little fever. Then a little more reddness and itching and the bite area raises. Then the bite mark begins to blacken and the flesh sinks as it deteriorates. Typically people who are bitten don’t have a clue until it is very late in the game and they are very ill from the bite.

Sneaky Critters

But what is especially interesting about these two kinds of spiders is how easily they can hide in the most unlikely spots. They can remain so very still you think they are part of the wall. They can press their rather large bodies through small holes and cracks to be places you would never expect them to be. They hide behind pictures hung on the walls, on the side of the sofa or once I found one on my closet door knob clinging there like it was part of the pattern on the brass fittings, just waiting for me to turn the handle.

They are very sneaky and once you disturb them they take off and chase you (well I understand it is the fear pheromones they are attracted to, and for me that would be very attractive). Their behaviours remind me of a few people I have known in my life (both real and virtual). But you have to live with them somehow because they do keep down the number of other bugs.

And if you’re wondering….I finally found the spider in my room. It was hiding right beside the drape pull cord, silently and deadly still waiting, skulking, hoping I would never find him, until he hurt me. But I did (and screamed a lot too). Now he will never bother anyone again. (One last small detail I left off earlier -- they always come in twos.)

Sometimes, you must take drastic steps to have peace in your life and in your bed!