Peter came to live with us a couple of months after we moved in. At first I did not enjoy his companionship. Although he kept mostly to himself, he always ate in bed and since his bed had lots of holes there was always a mess under it. Since Pete made his home in the corner directly across from the toilet, every time I sat down to do my business, I end up looking at the leftovers from his last meal.
Then one day my present came. After months of hearing friends praise their Dyson V6, I finally succumbed and bought a new vacuum. To be honest, I had vacuumed exactly once since we moved into this place. Now that I had this new toy, the mess around me seemed intolerable! I went on a cleaning spree, and Pete’s corner of insect carcasses had to go. But of course, I first asked J to move Pete outside, since spiders are actually wonderful creatures and we shouldn’t kill them just because they can’t clean up after themselves. J was busy and I threatened to just suck Pete up with his latest victims with my nifty new vacuum, which worked great in corners by the way. After I cleaned up the mess under Pete’s bed and destroyed half of his net, I found Pete sulking in the corner. He’s probably pretty freaked out, I thought. It is not cool when you are just minding your own business and suddenly half of your bed is just sucked into a giant round thing that makes a super loud noise. My sympathy got the best of me, and that was the day our spider roommate officially got his name Pete.
We’ve been in our apartment for 5 months now, and Pete has definitely grown quite a bit. Once in a while I clean up his murder victims (Dyson is the best!), but usually only when he’s hiding in the corner so he doesn’t accidentally get mudered himself.
Then today, our relationship just advanced to a whole new level. While doing my usual after dinner Facebook perusing, I realized a mosquito had bitten me no less than 4(!) times on my foot. I lamented the inevitable arrival of summer and cursed this creature who brought me such first world discomfort. J, like the knight in shining armor he is, heard my plea for help and valiantly captured the culprit, crushing the villain with a dirty sock with just one stroke. Not wanting to waste a good insect, we brought the fresh kill to Pete’s corner, and with a precise flick, the mosquito flew onto Pete’s bed. Pete approached the dead visitor with caution, moving quickly and then pausing, before finally reaching its prey. Its spidey feet moved quickly to wrap the mosquito with its invisible web, and then dragged it quickly into a corner for some fine dining experience.
We sat there on the bathroom floor (in front of the toilet) and watched our pet spider eat a dead mosquito we caught to feed it.
Life has reached a new destination I could have never imagined.
Since we are moving soon, we are making plans to help Pete move out. After all, not everyone is as nice as us when it comes to freeloading roommates. We hope life in the wild will be adventurous for Pete, and will fondly think of him whenever we destroy another spiderweb in our beautiful new home.m
Leave a Reply