Hairy and Crazy

By Lisa

It’s that time of year, when spiders beat a path to my door.

I know.

Still got it.

As soon as I open my front door, big wolf spiders come from God-knows-where to run inside my house.

Of course I can’t bring myself to kill them. Spiders are good bugs, even if they’re scary and creepy, so I turn a glass upside down over them, slide a paper underneath, then flip the entire assembly right side up and throw the spider back outside.

But lately, I’m finding problems with my method.

First, it means that I always answer the door with a glass in my hand, like a drunk. The neighbors and the UPS guys are starting to look at me funny. I tell them it’s because of the spiders, but the spiders hide when other people come over.

My UPS guy winks. “Right, the spiders. Gotcha.”

It doesn’t help that I usually come off slightly potted around this time of year, writing all day in sweatpants and frowzy hair, with my glasses cockeyed. It’s not a good look for a single woman, and about the only thing it attracts is spiders.

Second, the spiders are onto me, and they think it’s a game. This morning when I opened the door to get the newspaper, I had to throw out a huge wolf spider, and just now, when I went to take the dogs for a walk, the same spider tried to get back in.

And he was smiling.

He was so big that between the spider going in and the dogs and I going out, it was a traffic jam of furry legs.

Mine included.

The furriest.

Hey, it’s fall, and that’s how you know. My leg hair grows in, long and fluffy.

That’s what women really mean when we say that we love the seasons. Half the year, we’re not shaving our legs.

Men would never know, if I weren’t busting us. They’re too busy looking at our busts.

Which are unhairy, generally.

Or maybe that’s another column.

To write when I’m drunk.

Or you are.

Anyway, the third problem with my method is that spiders network better than teenagers. They used to run in one at a time, but now each one is coming back with five hundred friends, and I bet they’re all on Facebook and Twitter, calling for a flash mob at my doorstep.

They’re LOL. And I’m WTF?

When four or five run at me, there aren’t enough glasses to catch them all, and at the end of the day, I have a dishwasher full of glasses used only by spiders.

Half the time, there are no glasses left for my margarita.

Er, I mean, Diet Coke.

Plus, I don’t have time to clean up after insects. Who needs it? I live alone. I’m an empty spider-nester.

I decided to use only the tallest glasses for spiders, but Daughter Francesca didn’t know that, and the last time she visited, I caught her drinking out of one. I yelped, “Eeek, a spider glass!”

And she dropped it.

It must be a buggy time of year, because I just read in the newspaper that parts of the southeastern United States are being invaded by hairy crazy ants. I’m not making this up, and that’s what they’re called.

They don’t shave in fall or winter, either.

They’re called hairy because their abdomens are furry, unlike normal ants, and they’re called crazy because they run superfast, in random directions. They swarm into homes and factories, trying to find warm places to live.

Eew.

And if a hairy crazy ant gets killed, it releases a chemical that cues the rest of the hairy crazy colony to attack. According to one entomology professor, “The other ants rush in. Before long, you have a ball of ants.”

So I’m feeling lucky. My spiders run in a straight line, and I’m hairier and crazier than they are.

But I swear, the day I open my front door and a ball of spiders rolls toward me, I’m going out drinking.

With my UPS guy.