The Worst Man-Eating Spider in the World

It started as a peaceful day. 

Just the No 1 daughter and I, chilling at home together.  

Creating some wonderful Mother-Daughter memories, building mutual trust and respect for each other after somewhat slipping in the Mother Of The Year stakes when we had our Nearly Drive by Shooting.

She was in the kitchen preparing something yummy for us to eat (probably chocolate for her, vodka for me, I can’t recall the finer details), and I was in the lounge lovingly cataloguing my Duty Free collection.

All of a sudden a blood-curdling scream emitted from the kitchen and quite possibly a couple of swearwords.

“OMG Mum, look, LOOK – a fucking huge spider!”

Not the best words to bring out my mothering skills and for a moment I contemplated a temporary disability.

“Where?” I bravely yelled from behind the couch.

“OMG here, on the wall.  Come and see.  Is it dead?!!”

“Yep I’m sure it will be.  Lets just leave it to a dignified burial.”

“Um, mother… you need to come and see this.”

As I limped out to the kitchen holding my leg, I prepared myself for what I was sure was a little jumpy spider.  Then remembered I was in Australia.  I grabbed the nearest bottle to me and ingested some courage.  Turns out Bacardi is quite nice straight.

I rounded the corner and saw The Daughter backed into the corner of the bench, pointing towards the dishwasher.  Which was actually sitting on top of the bench, so she was sort of pointing towards the ceiling.

And I saw it.

“What the FUCK???”  I stifled down a scream, but not very successfully.

There, spread out in all its glory, was a huntsman.  A massive huntsman.  A huntsman the size of a dinner plate.

Well, not quite, but  ALMOST the size of a dinner plate.  It was big enough that I could see it looking at me with it’s fangs and let me tell you…. there was malice in those eyes.

“It’s dead, aye Mum?  Aye?  Mum??”

I returned again from the lounge and remembered at that moment that Baccardi is not quite the same percentage as wine.

“Um, well…. it COULD be dead?  But I don’t think it would still be stuck to the wall like that if it was?”

“Mother!!  It’s DEAD!”

“Uh…” feelings of breaking news of a beloved pet death or impending natural disaster rise to the fore.  “Not yet it’s not missy…”

“Well, I won’t be sleeping in the house tonight while that’s there, so you need to do something about it.”

I look behind me wondering who she was talking to.

“Uh… me?”

“You’re the MOTHER, you’re supposed to protect me!”

“Yeah, well if anyone tries to break into our house, I’m all over that shit.  Now go and get the fly spray and kill that spider for Mummy.”

Looks reminiscent of when I told her how Tyra was made flitted across her features, and her jaw dropped.

“It’s there, under the bench, right over there by the dishwasher.  Good girl.”

Still no action and I’m beginning to think I raised some pretty disobedient children.

“I expected more from you Mother.”

Yeah, well… I bought her a cool phone for nothing so I’m comfortable with this.

“You are going to OWE me.”

“Of course!  Now there, there it is, under the sink.  Go.”

She tentatively creeps over to the cupboard, eye on the Dinner Plate Spider the whole time.  I’m ducked behind the bench (on the safe side of course) keeping lookout, ready to warn her if it shows any signs of impending attack.

She grabs the fly spray and slams the cupboard door shut.

“Don’t SLAM IT!!  It’ll lose its grip on the wall and run towards us!!”

I think I got an eye-roll and the words she called me weren’t exactly complimentary.

We come across a logistical roadblock right about now.  The Dinner Plate Spider is above and behind the dishwasher, sitting about eight feet high.  The Daughter is only about four foot tall.

Never mind, a problem shared is a problem halved.

“Spray it!  Just aim the can in its direction and spray it!”

She aims the can in its general direction and sprays.  It reaches about six inches in front of her.  At least we can be assured there’ll be no spiders on the floor that night.

“MUM!!”

“Hmmm, yes, oh sorry what missy?” I manage after swallowing my mouthful of Baccardi.

“God Mother….”

God is right, I realise how terrible I’m being and feel a pang of guilt.  “Here you go” I say and offer the bottle to her.

She’s still standing there staring at me, and the spider is still suctioned to the wall waiting to kill us.  I need to come up with a plan.  I’m all about thinking on my feet and being spontaneous, I nearly passed ¾ of an Air Traffic Control course, I can do this.

“Here missy, use this” as I pass her a bar stool.  “Stand on this and you’ll get closer to it.”

My brilliance amazes me sometimes.

Another icy stare, then it finally sinks in to The Daughter that she has to be the hero in this scenario.  I have too much at stake to risk being eaten by a spider.  I haven’t even been dumped at this stage (twice) so I’ve still got lots of life to live.

She takes the stool and places it 3cm closer than where she was standing for the first blast.

“Get CLOSER!  You need to be right up there!  You need to be nearly touching it so that you make sure you KILL IT!”

No OSH considerations even enter my head as my No 1 daughter, my baby, my pride and joy, precariously tries to hike her four foot frame up onto a three foot bar stool.

I mean, I COULD have helped, but that would necessitate getting closer to Dinner Plate Spider so really, that’s a moot point.

As she teetered precariously on the three-legged stool with a bung leg, I retreated to a safe distance, using my massive IQ to work out what was going to happen next.

It didn’t.

The spray still only reached about six inches in front of her.  Which was still about eight feet away from our enemy.

“You need to go CLOSER!!” as I stand up from behind the bench (the safe side, where the Bacardi is).

“OK” she says, bravely inching the stool two inches forward.

“Oh my GOD Maz!!  Grow some balls!  Get in there and really SPRAY that bastard!!”

Still no luck, and I come to the realisation that this is going to require close-quarter contact.  My military training kicks in with a plan.

I drink more Bacardi.

“Righto missy.  There’s no dodging this.  You’re going to have to be pretty much ON TOP of that spider, sneak in from the rear, take it by surprise, ambush it.  GET that MOTHER FUCKER!!”

I might have whooped at this stage, but if I did it was the Bacardi talking.

The Daughter gets down from the bar stool and leaves the kitchen.

“Uh… what are you doing?  Where are you going?  There’s still a Dinner Plate Spider on our wall.  That’s going to eat us.”

“I’m going to get protection.”

I raised her so well.

Ten seconds later she’s back with a t-shirt in her hand. 

“Um, what are you going to do with THAT?  Like, throw it over it or something and carry it outside??”

Over my dead body.

“I’m wrapping it around my head to cover my mouth.”

“Oh…. of course.  To protect you from the fly spray fumes.”

“No??”  She looks at me like I’m dumb.  “In case it falls off the wall into my mouth.”

Back she climbs onto the stool with co-ordination that would make Cirque de Soliel go out of business.

Then she climbs back down. 

"Where are you going??"

30 seconds later she reappears.  With a set of binoculars and wearing sunnies.

"I need to check out whether this thing is alive or dead, and exactly what I'm dealing with.".

Of course.  I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't think of it first.

"And the sunglasses?"

"In case it falls into my eye."

Up she gets back on the stool.

We’re pretty close now – and by “we” I mean “her” – and the can is within eight feet of Dinner Plate Spider.

“Get closer!”

“I don’t want to!”

“Lean in, get closer!”

“I can’t!”  A short burst of spray follows, simultaneously accompanied by a large squeal.  The daughter may have squealed as well.

“Get closer, you didn’t get it!”

It’s hard to convey in words how actually brave I was being from behind the kitchen bench.

“You can DO this missy, go, spray it, spray the little fucker, GO!”

“Oh my god oh my god fuckthisshit!”  Another short burst of spray follows, simultaneously accompanied by an even larger squeal.  The daughter may have squealed as well.

When I uncover my eyes I see that's she's leapt off the stool and is cowering in the corner on the safe side of the bench beside me.

Still no luck with hitting our target, and as the minutes pass by I swear Dinner Plate Spider is growing into Roasting Dish Spider.

“MAZ!!  Just get IN there!  You have to move in REALLY really close and just nail this son of a bitch for once and for all!”

I get the death stares for about the tenth time, although I’m still struggling to understand why.  What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.  That’s all I’m trying to teach her.  I’m a good Mum.

Bless my No 1 daughter, my baby, my pride and joy… she picks up that stool, moves it so close that she can see her reflection in Roasting Dish Spider’s eyes, and she gets back up armed with her can of fly spray ready to go.

“GO MAZ, GO!!  GO YOU LITTLE BEAUTY!!”

She lets forth with one huge continuous spray that not only hits the target, but redecorates our kitchen walls white at the same time.

What we’d failed to anticipate in our assassination plan was that Roasting Dish Spiders that are subjected to Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare attacks find it quite difficult to maintain their suction on kitchen walls.

As it began its descent to sure death, which played out in slow motion to both The Daughter and I like a scene from… well, the SCARIEST horror movie EVER, it shrivelled itself up into a cannonball profile in order to make itself the best trajectory possible.  And this projectile was heading our way.

The Daughter screamed.  I screamed louder.  The Daughter screamed again and grabbed me.  I screamed again louder and wet my pants. 

Roasting Dish Spider continued his descent then suddenly changed course.  Like something out of the Angelina Movie where she bends bullets.  

Roasting Dish Spider disappears behind the dishwasher.  Where we can’t see a thing.

The Daughter and I paused screaming and urinating for a second to look at each other, then we looked back at the dishwasher.

“How do we know he’s DEAD??”

“Mum?”

“Mummy…?”

I take the bottle out of my mouth to answer her.

“We don’t.”

The only thing left for us to do is go behind enemy lines to check the medical status of our Prisoner Of War.

And by “us” I mean “her”.

“Go look under the dishwasher.  See if you can see it moving.”

“YOU go look under the dishwasher.”

“Um, I’m busy doing…. Oh Murmie!  You need feeding?  Hang on, of course…”

“YOU go look under the dishwasher.”

“Um, didn’t you hear?  I have to feed Murmie.”

More words followed that I simply cannot repeat, and eventually I was guilted in to looking under the dishwasher. 

Which, I might add, was pretty brave given that SHE had attacked this innocent spider and no doubt pissed it off, and now I was the one having to do the dirty work of either negotiating with it, or *fingers crossed* recovering it’s cadaver.

Although even that’s a lie.  We all know there’s no way I’m touching any kind of spider, dead or alive.

After investigation, it appeared that Roasting Dish Spider was well and truly roasted.  Either that or he’d decided to have a little rest for a bit while his eyes stopped stinging.   Just to be safe, I made the executive decision to leave him there for the time being, rather than being accused of burying someone alive.

I nominated Maz for sentry duty.

“It’s all good missy.  Mummy is just going to get back to what she was doing before you freaked out about this silly little spider - but that’s OK please don’t be embarrassed - and you carry on with what you were doing.  Which, I believe, was cooking me dinner.  Make sure it's something that goes will with Bacardi.”