Just A Few Thousand Spiders

Remember the prehistoric spider living on our front porch? Remember how I was going to relocate it somewhere else?

Yeah, that didn’t happen.

And now she’s part of the menagerie that includes Polly the Possum, Randy the Raccoon, and The Feral Five (Mama, Simon, Oso and Da Boyz…I couldn’t decide on names for the other two so they’re just “Da Boyz”).

I’ve named the spider Carmela.

I know what you’re thinking. Who the fuck names a prehistoric looking spider that lives on the front porch?

The same people who named a spider Peter Parker and kept it alive in the kitchen by the outside light switch until a very unfortunate incident with Mr. Luna.

Anyway, I couldn’t bring myself to make Carmela move away. She worked really hard to spin a beautiful web between the beam on the front porch and the front window. There have been many mornings that I walked outside and she was making short work of a June bug, or a wasp, or even another spider.

I mean, how can you not love a creature that kills wasps? They’re assholes.

I researched it and it appears that Carmela may be a black and yellow Argiope, or a variety thereof. Argiopes are not venomous or aggressive. They spin beautiful, intricate webs and as I have observed, they do eat all varieties of pests, including other spiders.

There’s just one problem. Carmela is with child. Or children, I should say.

Like possibly up to  2800 of them.

You see, Carmela is carefully guarding two rather large looking egg sacs behind her web. My research shows that each sac may contain between 400 to 1400 baby spiders.

So two sacs times 1400 equals

I like Carmela. She’s very pretty in a Jurassic Park kind of way and I love watching her spin webs. I especially love the way she’s keeping the insect population at bay. But I’m pretty sure, I don’t want a whole fleet or flock or whatever the hell you call a shit-ton of spiders, all over my front porch.

Our daughter and daughter-in-law are already scared to walk in and out the front door because of Carmela. I would imagine they would not ever return if they knew Carmela was going to be the Octomom of the Arachnid world.

So now I’ve got a dilemma. How do I get rid of the egg sacs without harming Carmela or unleashing thousands of babies all over the place? If I spray, that will hurt her. If I knock them down, I’m afraid of what will happen if they bust open.

The thought of it actually gives me nightmares.

And then, if I do actually get rid of them, what’s to stop Carmela from making more babies? I mean, those two egg sacs appeared within a week or two of each other. Girlfriend’s been busy.

Her milkshake brings ALL the boy spiders to the yard.

I wonder if I could lace a fly with something and feed it to her? Do they make birth control for spiders? Is there such thing as an Arachno-Hysterectomy? Can we get her a Nuvaring or a patch or something?

Why aren’t the male spiders being more careful? And where did these dudes go when she laid her egg sacs? Sure, it’s all fun and games when you’re dancing around a fancy web, sucking on June bug heads, but as soon as responsibilities show up, Spiderman is all “Deuces” and leaves.

Or maybe Carmela ate him.

Oh man…I didn’t think about that. Maybe Black Widows aren’t the only spiders that eat their mates. Maybe Carmela is just a “love ’em and eat ’em” kind of gal.

Whore.

Or bad ass.

I can’t decide which.

So I went out on the front porch to get pictures for this post but it was kind of dark and Carmela was busy working on her web so I couldn’t get a close up of her.

I got a good one of her baby holders:

Then, as I was trying to angle around and get a good picture of Carmela, a dragonfly flew right into the web!

And Carmela sprang into action, and wrapped the dragonfly up like an Xbox at Christmas!

And now I think it’s the Arachnid version of the scene in the Godfather when the guy woke up with the horse’s head in his bed.

Carmela just sent a message.

Don’t. Mess. With. Her. Babies.

I think it’s time to move.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!