A Farewell To Arms…Or Legs

Carmella de Porch Spider passed from these earthly bonds on Tuesday, September 18.

Yes, I know I don’t like euphemisms like “passed”, but since this is an obituary of sorts, I’m trying to be genteel.

Not much is known about Carmella’s origins. We can only guess that she emerged from her egg sac along with her five-hundred brothers and sisters some time last Spring.

Nothing is known about her early days. It wasn’t until some time in July that she set up housekeeping on our front porch, building a magnificent, glorious web that stretched from the corner of the front window all the way to the beam that separated the side of the house from the front. It truly was the Taj Mahal of spider webs.

Carmella spent many happy days devouring June bugs, flies, wasps, dragonflies three times her size, and even a few male suitors. By day, she rested comfortably in the top most corner of her web. By night, she gorged herself like a chubby girl at The Cheesecake Factory.

Don’t send hate mail. If you do, I’ll send you back a picture of my chubby self gorging at the Cheesecake Factory.

Carmella was the most tidy of housekeepers. As soon as she polished off the evening’s meal, she immediately went back to work, cleaning up and repairing her web. We will surely miss her delicate, graceful air ballet and the way she wove those fibers like a master artisan with the most intricate of designs.

Not everyone appreciated Carmella’s long, black hairy legs, her whitish-yellowish body, or her girlish spots that made her look like she had freckles. In fact, more than one person would run screaming from the porch, as though a serial killer with a chainsaw was after them.

There were, however, many of her own kind who did, in fact, appreciate her special beauty. Many gentlemen friends came calling and met their untimely demise at the hands…um…legs of Carmella. Carmella produced two beautiful egg sacs, which she lovingly placed on the beam behind her web.

As the long days of summer began to grow shorter, Carmella grew more still and somber. When we came out the front door and startled her, she no longer tried to scare us into thinking she was a big, bad spider by dancing on her web and making it shake. She simply stayed on her perch and watched us with her eight eyes, resting and plotting her final curtain call.

During those last days, she hardly moved and her web became cluttered with debris and the carcasses of small insects she no longer had the energy to wrangle. On the final morning, I noticed she was no longer on her web at all. She had moved down to the wall by the door frame. She didn’t so much as flinch when we stepped out to leave for the day. I bent down to look at her, eyes to octo-eyes, and told her goodbye.

And not to go in my fucking house.

I swear, I think she flipped me off with at least three legs.

That afternoon, I had a sinking feeling as I stepped onto the front porch. Sure enough, as I approached the front door, I saw her shriveled body on the ground by the door mat, legs curled gracefully around her body.

She looked so much smaller, laying there like that. I sighed and glanced up at the Taj Mahal web that looked like a ghost town now.

That’s when I saw it.

The third egg sac.

Her own personal “Fuck you…now you can have SIX THOUSAND of my children to remember me by!”.

That crafty bitch.

Carmella is currently lying in state on our kitchen counter in the little plastic bug catching jar with the magnifying glass in the lid that Shane got in his kid’s Whataburger meal in the First Grade. She will be available for viewing until we can make up our minds where her final resting place will be.

I personally think she should go into the big flower pot outside that the feral cats use as their cat box. She deserves it after leaving me to deal with her offspring.

The Husband Dude feels we should find something more appropriate. He has told me he will not watch Charlotte’s Web now and he wants me to quit singing The Circle of Life in the only way I can, which is off key.

I heard Shane mumbling, “R.I.P” as he poured out some Mountain Dew on the ground.

Indeed, my son. Indeed.

Stay weird, my friends. Normal is boring!