So, I am not fond of spiders. Ok… they creep me out and I completely go all girly. I cant help it.

They didn’t used to, but one day during my childhood, I walked through a web heading into the house. I looked down and well… If I woulda puckered my lips, I would have been kissing the big hairy ugly wood spider with his eight eyes staring up at me. Needless to say, I freaked out and haven’t been right since.

Now, I will kill spiders in the house. If they are outside, I let them live – that’s the rule. But those big ugly hairy wood spiders are huge. I’m a little weird about trying to kill something by stepping on it if it is bigger than my foot.

Well, I moved to this little old house back in the fall. Apparently, there is a very large family of wood spiders that live there too. I did not know this until after I signed the lease.

So as I start moving my stuff into the new place, I am heading up the steps and I see this massive massive massive spider in the corner of one of the steps. I’m barefoot… Yeah… no stepping on this spider… nope… not gonna happen… So I run down stairs and try to find something that will kill it. I manage to kill it (I took multiple hits). Apparently it was a mommy spider as lots of babies started running around… Oh yeah… I’m gonna have nightmares… I leave the carcass sitting there on the steps. I figure it will let other spiders know this is not a spider friendly house. (Yes, for real, this is how my brain works.)

After a week, I finally have all my stuff moved in and I am officially moving me in as well. So I clean up the carcass figuring it is safe now. I haven’t seen any more big spiders. Oh was I ever wrong…

So there I am one day, again barefoot, enjoying my new place, when I catch movement out of the corner of my eye. I see it’s another really really really really really big ugly hair wood spider. I go all girly, shriek, and run in the opposite direction. Wood spiders tend to be a bit aggressive and it was coming towards me.

I’m thinking It’s the Daddy and his pissed that I killed Mommy. As I start to run, barefoot mind you, in the other direction to get something to kill it (it’s in the house, it has to die – that’s the rule), I spy another slightly smaller spider. Maybe the adolescent son? Well it happens to be exactly where I am planning on putting my foot as I am running from his Daddy…. So I ended up doing a Jesus walk on air move to avoid stepping on the teenage son spider. I am realizing now that I had two spiders coming at me from different directions… Can spiders really coordinate an attack? Yes, I believe they can! They were on this day.

I make it to the kitchen and grab my spider killing stick (yes, I have a spider killing stick – it’s sole purpose is to kill spiders). I have to hurry, because if I lose track of where these two went I will never ever sleep again. I came back around and decide to take out the smaller one first. It takes one good whack and he’s done. The Daddy, however, was not so easy. I hit him and it doesn’t even faze him. He lurches at me. I scream like a little girl and hit him again, and again, and again… About a dozen hits later, he’s finally dead and I am exhausted. Who knew battling with a couple of spiders could be so exhausting.

Now, I’ve told you all that to tell you this:

My house has a basement. Many wood spiders seem to live there.

So any time I have to go to the basement here is what happens (honest to God, this is exactly what I do):