I never kill spiders because I am deeply, deeply imprinted with the belief that this is very bad luck. I don't know if it came from Charlotte's Web or Greek myth or a folktale or straight out of my preschool ass, but it's been a central arachnid truth in my brain for as long as I can remember.

I don't want to kill them because deep down I KNOW that the spiders keep track of who kills them and who doesn't, and are planning their revenge.

I like to picture all the exponentially increasing number of descendants I've squashed at a remove or so whenever I kill a mosquito. Especially in the spring. Ditto for houseflies or (ugh) bluebottles.

Although moths are pretty gross when you squish them.

And leave dusty sploofs everywhere when the cat is playing with them. We could always tell when Thimble (our black cat) has feasted on a few because she had moth dust all over her face.

Wait, -t. Some roaches fly? In America?

Hugs New England very, very tightly.

it's bad luck to kill a Lady Bug. If you kill a spider, it rains.

That is a set of consequences I can deal with.

I KNOW that the spiders keep track of who kills them and who doesn't, and are planning their revenge.

Oh, god. In that case, I'm probably doomed from childhood, when I pulled the legs off Daddy Long Legs. (Not regularly or anything, but, um, I was small and so were they.)

(And I know DLL's aren't spiders, but it probably counts toward the same cosmic account.)

Some roaches fly? In America?

It's the price you pay for the tropics. Worth it, pretty much.

Wait, -t. Some roaches fly? In America?

Palmetto bugs. They are tres nasty.

When they're inside and bapping against the light or the wall and disturbing my reading? I'm taking that moth out.

(Except not actually, like the guy mentioned above. However, given the ookyness and smudges on the wall from a squised moth, I can understand the impulse.)

t peeks in. still about spiders. ducks out.

There was a spider egg on the ceiling I'd overlooked in cleaning. It had hatched, and there were dozens of tiny paratroopers rapelling down from the ceiling.

This morning, I carried my half full mug of cold tea into the kitchen, taking a sip somewhere along the way. (I know, I'm gross.) I set it down, turned back to pick it up and empty it out and THERE WAS A SPIDER INSIDE IT. A big-ass one, too. Full grown, not a baby. All gray and with many legs.... faints momentarily

How long it was there, I don't know, but unless it kamikazied into my mug in the split second between setting it down and turning back to it, it was there when I sipped at it in blind gronkiness. The idea of my lips nearly brushing spider legs/torso/head this morning has stayed with me all day.

never stops screaming...in my head