Spiders and shipping boxes

“Along came a spider, and sat down beside her …” 

Mr. Wonderful is the most unflappable person I know. This man has severed his fingers (on two separate occasions) and, I am told, remained calm.

So, when he was emptying a box that pet supplies shipped in, I did not expect him to freeze and bark, “get the door!”

I know an urgent tone when I hear one. I got the door!

Mr. Wonderful slid that cardboard box out onto the porch lightning fast. Only then did he show me what was inside it. Namely, the largest and fluffiest spider I have ever seen in the wild. It was like part spider and part wildcat. Maybe a spider-wolf hybrid?

For the record, I am not afraid of spiders. I live in Ohio. For the most part, we have harmless and cute little spiders. “They eat other bugs,” I say. “They are our friends,” I insist.

Alien

This, however, was no run-of-the-mill Midwestern spider. It wasn’t just sitting around waiting for a side of ranch and saying “ope.” This spider was huge. Easily bigger than a nickel, it had thick, black fur and glowing, green eyes. I say this as if I am having a police sketch artist recreate the culprit from my memory.

It was the eyes that really got me. They were glowing. Alien eyes. That’s it; I had a super-huge, alien spider.

I can definitely believe that the spider was just as fearful of me as I was of it. It was darting around inside the box kind of frantically. Then, it jumped. So now, I faced the real danger. We clearly had an alien, leaping spider.

I tried to take some video with my phone, but that was difficult to do when I was also trying to stay as far away from the spider as possible, while still remaining on the same porch.

Not afraid

A few years ago, I tangled with what we assume was a brown recluse. I still have the scars — and memories of being the sickest I have been in my life — to remind me that I do not ever want to do that again.

I still am not “afraid” of spiders. I just have a healthy respect for them. This is particularly true of any spider that hitched a ride from who-knows-where in a shipping box. Did they send me a black widow? A brown widow? A Brazilian wanderer? I had to find out.

According to the Encyclopedia Britannica (sorry Google, but I wanted a source with some history behind it), “More than 43,000 different species of spiders are found in the world. Of these, only a small number are said to be dangerous, and less than 30 (less than one-tenth of 1%) have been responsible for human deaths.”

First: Whew! My chances were good that I was not going to die by shipping box spider. More importantly, our precious little dogs were in no danger. I will shank a spider that tries to get my pets. Second: That is a lot of spiders.

Help

The company that sent the shipment, having seen my social media post, replied that they were sending me a private message to help. I checked my inbox a few times, but they never sent a return label. I guess this is our spider now.

I assume we received the one and only, limited edition, large, leaping spider. If not, I really think they need to reconsider this particular free gift with purchase. It’s definitely a solid zero out of five stars.

I know good help is hard to find these days, but if this is going to be a regular gig, these furry little crew members are going to need tiny company uniforms and a whole lot of little steel-toed boots.