God damn spiders

Originally Posted by Syndrome

Also, we had a little nest of cross spiders above our door last summer. Easily 25-30 cross spiders hanging out, dropping down on anyone below. Fucking leechers.

You're rather lucky. A spider in the home is considered to be a good omen in some primitive cultures. An entire nest would be heralded as a blessing.
Dreaming of spiders is also considered to bring good fortune.

Cross spiders are pretty cool, as they belong to the argiope genus. You know the traditional "spiral" web designs you see in children's books? Only argiope spiders produce those.

I used to be terrified of spiders, mostly because the few hazardous ones give the entire family a bad name. I've seen some very small black widows and brown recluse spiders around here, so I'm always watchful.

But they don't bother me as they used to. A couple years ago, I noticed a small house spider crawling about my overhead lamp. As I grabbed a stool and slipper to smash the spider, I had an unexpected change of heart. It was just one spider, so tiny and so harmless to me. It wasn't attacking me. It was trying to find a home.

It's funny. When you personify small creatures it becomes extraordinarily more difficult to injure them. I thought about how the spider must instinctively fear something as huge as I, and just saw no reason to take its life. Man is the only animal that kills for no other reason than it can.

I let the spider build a small nest in a corner of my room. The summer passed, it died and I cleaned up the cobweb. Since then, I've found my peace with spiders. My refuse attracts the spider's prey; the spider keeps my room parasite-free.

Man and spiders have a symbiotic relationship, if you think about it.

Jam it back in, in the dark.