Arachnus Deathicus

These sultry days of late summer bring out spiders.  I know that.  It happens every year.  The local BIG brown spider (sorry, no specie specifics) starts stringing webs from our eaves around dusk to catch their nightly meal.  I have learned to share the property with these fascinating web architects during their short season.  There are just a handful of locations they use, and once established will be there every night for a few weeks, patiently constructing their webs.  Where they are the rest of the year is a mystery that I probably do not want to unravel.

My noble 'live and let live' attitude towards spiders is a facade, however, for the deeper aversion most people feel towards these eight-legged creatures.  I was out on my morning jog recently and IT happened.  I plowed into the gauzy, clingy strands of an unseen web to the tune of that faint crackling noise of snapping web threads.  Instantly, I started flailing to get the fragments off, but uppermost in my mind was the question: WHERE IS THE SPIDER?????  To early morning commuters passing by, I must have appeared to be having a seizure of some kind as I beat at my head, shoulders and arms in a frenzy.  Then, much to my relief, in the yellow glow of the street light, I saw a small shadow drop to the ground and scurry away on its eight whole legs, as glad to be away from my thrashing as I was to see it go.  The rest of my jog was made with an extra degree of alertness and ended without further creepy encounters.  I will be glad to run in the cold of winter when the spiders are gone...

Update: In my haste to get this posted, I neglected to include a link for the inspiration for title of this post, from that delightful animated hero movie, Megamind.  Arachnus Deathicus