Attack of the Garden Spiders

By Kevin Gibson
September 27, 2007

I’m not afraid of many things. I do suffer from a slight case of coulrophobia (which is an abnormal fear of clowns), but that has become almost a fascination. Can’t really call that a fear anymore. But I will admit to being afraid of one thing: spiders.

OK, not really afraid – let’s just say that I can’t stand to look at them, be anywhere near them or acknowledge their existence in this universe. I guess that’s more of a really extreme aversion to spiders than a fear.

I recently spent a long night having dreams about spiders, horrible dreams that disturbed my sleep. And I know why: Because of the Attack of the Garden Spiders. My lovely girlfriend, Jen, planted a garden in our back yard this past spring, and we have enjoyed a wonderful harvest of tomatoes, red and yellow peppers, zucchini, squash and even jalapeno peppers all season long.

But the garden also became a feeding ground/orgy of death for black and yellow garden spiders (also known as the Argiope aurantia, which is Latin for “Holy crap, look at that goddamn thing!”). Oh, it’s true, they are harmless to humans, and they eat lots of bugs (or at least drink their liquefied innards), so they’re good for the garden and for humanity.

But, well … holy crap! Look at that goddamn thing! Sorry. Jen saw the first one in early summer when the thing built a nice big web about two feet in circumference between the tomatoes and the fence and then sat there leering at us like it owned the damn place. Jen didn’t disturb it and didn’t want me to kill it. Me, I just stayed away from the garden. Then a few weeks later we noticed another one had set up camp between the fence and our shed. Just as big, just as ugly. Needless to say, I stopped mowing the small patch of grass between the fence and shed. I wasn’t afraid of it, just wanted to provide plenty of grass for bugs to play in, so it could liquefy their innards and drink them. Just wanted to help out, you know? Be a good neighbor.

Holy crap ... LOOK at that goddamn thing!

Well, then we decided it was time to clean out all the branches and weeds in the back part of our lot; we’d been meaning to do it all summer but had been putting it off. So finally, one sunny Sunday afternoon, we donned gloves, long sleeves and pants, and went to work with mower, weed eater and axe. We cut and we pounded, and we chopped and we cut, and in a couple of hours the once weedy and ugly back lot was looking more like a yard.

And at that point we noticed … there were no fewer than SIX displaced garden spiders on the back of the shed, staring at us. Apparently, we had just destroyed their homes, and they did NOT look happy with us. In fact, it was apparent to me that they were plotting our demise. (I honestly think I may have pooped a little when I saw that congregation of evil.)

Well, we kept working, and I for one steered well clear of that damned shed. After a while, I was bagging cut weeds and stacking them in the back alley for pickup. But as I was working along, eager to have the chore finished so I could relax and have a well-earned beer – and get away from the watchful eye of the Spiderpalooza festival taking place on the freaking shed – I noticed movement to my right. I looked over in the alley, figuring it was a squirrel, but saw nothing. Then my eye caught movement again and I realized – the movement was on my right shoulder.

Yep, you guessed it. A garden spider the size of a kitten was sitting on my shoulder, about two inches from my right cheek. Its legs twitched eagerly, as if it were preparing to liquefy my innards.

Time stopped for a second, but thinking back, it really seemed longer than that. In the distance, I thought I heard a young woman scream. Maybe it was me, I don’t know. Then I imagined my pale corpse dangling from a giant web … and hanging from the back of the shed, pants thoroughly pooped. Just as quickly as it had begun, my daze passed. I was back to reality, and instinct took over.

Now, I’m not a young guy anymore. In addition to being in possibly the worst shape of my life, I also have various injuries sustained over years of playing pickup basketball, rec-league softball and sandlot football that prevent me from moving anywhere with any degree of speed. But for a guy of 41, I moved pretty f***ing fast that day, I can tell you.

My left hand – and mind you, I’m right-handed – shot up from the garbage bag I was holding with blinding, almost lightning speed, and moved past my face. I was centimeters from smacking myself in the mouth, but out of sheer necessity my aim was true. And I struck that spider so hard with my gloved hand, that it was almost cartoon-like. I thought I heard a “thud,” like the sound made when Scooby Doo falls down. And I hit that damn spider so true that it flew off my shoulder on a line drive, and I literally watched it get smaller as it disappeared into the distance.

It was like watching the Coyote fall off a cliff in a Roadrunner cartoon. I half expected the spider to hold up a sign that said, “Help?”, followed by a tiny puff of smoke when it finally hit.

I stood there for a moment contemplating what had just happened. My heart pounded, my skin crawled. No one was around, so naturally I jumped around like an idiot, swatting at myself lest another of those vile creatures be perched on my leg or my neck or the pinkie toe of my left foot. Then, without betraying my cool exterior any further, I went back to bagging those damn weeds, mumbling to myself about arachnids and clowns and coyotes.

And every time a stray weed touched my arm or fell to the ground and made a noise, I jumped back two feet like I’d just stuck my tongue in an electrical outlet. I think one time I actually heard myself whimper, but I would never admit to that in a court of law.

But at the end of the day, I realized this: In a moment of emergency, I know I can act. FAST. I don’t even fear a terrorist, so long as it isn’t a spider terrorist. I don’t even really fear death … just so long as death doesn’t turn out to be a goddamn garden spider in a dark cloak. So I will be able to act to save myself or others in a disaster. Or maybe it was my terror that made me act so quickly, I don’t know, in which case I’d be useless against a simple terrorist with only four major appendages. Unless he was terrorizing people with a suicide garden spider.

I do know this: I was craving a fresh jalapeno pepper as a snack the other night around 10 p.m., and the ones in the fridge were getting a bit soft. I knew there were several on the plant that had turned red, and those sometimes get spicier, more flavorful. Delicious. I thought for a moment that I might just go out into the garden and …

Yeah, never mind. I’ll just have potato chips.

E-mail me. While you’re at it, would you fetch me a pepper from the garden?