In keeping with our recent collection, now a brimming 11, of tiny toadies, we have added a truly scary invertebrate to the mix. She's a wolf spider , about two inches across including legs. That is to say she could eat any one of our toads for a light snack. It creeps me out to even have their cages near each other. Her body alone is a chilling one inch long and … um … how to put this… meaty. I had the misfortune of running into the the little dear yesterday morning down in the basement. She was playing hide-n-seek with me while i trying to do the laundry. Her favorite hidy hole being under one laundry pile or the other, and my fun game was finding her… losing her… finding her again! Hello!
So let's review my options: a) kill her– surely a gruesome job, with all the legs and guts that would entail, to say nothing of the moral implications… she was carrying lo these 500 babies on her back at the time; b) go away from the basement never to return… tempting but impractical. .. I have no Hungarian laundress to beribbon princess slips, make strudel, or otherwise (see Joy of Cooking), and thus the laundry is my bag… I'm down there many times per day; or c) catch her and give her huge revolting scary self and all 5 million of her little ones a nice home in the country. So I went with C.
I was on the phone with my mom at the time, and when it comes to advice about how best to live capture a giant and powerful insect with many legs and biting mouth parts, she's the one you want on hand to talk you through it. I simply set a large and sturdy mason jar over the beast, then slid a layer of paper under it, tipped it over, and voila! A new pet!
Isaac was not home at the time, but can I tell you how PLEASED he was with my derring-do? His first imperative was to figure what she eats and procure some of that. In short he wanted to see her eat crickets. I was… ill. TRULY ILL at the thought. Frogs and toads I'm fine with. But this is much more squeamish making. But he was so persistent and so interested in the project that when we were out doing errands I allowed us to stop by the cricket store (there is one) and get six hapless victims. We also got a mini critter keeper, called the critter tote, for her to live in during her– god willing– brief stay at our home.
He named her "Mrs. Carry" because she's carrying so many young on her back. I nicknamed her "Mrs. Scary" because she scares the hell out of me.
So this morning I agreed to combine the crickets with their death warden. Then over the course of the morning we watched at least two sickening and prolonged interludes in which Mrs. Scary sucked the life out of the poor little bastards. Also, as I feared, the babies suddenly decided to take leave of mama and wander away far and wide. I did take the precaution of covering their critter tote with a layer of tissue paper such that escaping through the little breathing holes would be more challenging. But. Impossible? Hm.
All day I've been advocating letting her go as soon as possible, like NOW. But Isaac is loath to part with such a prize. (Indeed he insisted on bringing her critter tote to sleep beside his bed.) His plan now is to parlay the whole situation into a fish. He'll let all his wild pets go and I'll get him a fish. This is seeming more and more like a generous offer! A fish would be way, way better than this.
I took some photos. In these you can see the babies on her back, and her in the very act of sucking the life blood from the cricket. I can tell you that if you are prone to the heebee-jeebies, or the willies, or the creeps, for god's sakes don't click on them.
