CRYSTAL

A few of you know that we had a brief but enjoyable addition to our family, Crystal. The spider. I wish I had taken a decent photo of her, (and I assure you I would have if I had known she would have passed so suddenly) but you will just have to use your imaginations.

I found her on my stairs (inside) and thought she was one of those giant spider Halloween rings, and literally gasped when I realized she was not. She was just a common house spider, on steroids, or who was very old. And probably wise. I called Andy and bribed him to come kill her and he opted to put her in a jar for the kids to harass for a day. I thought she was really disgusting and shrieked every time she walked around on her very long, gross spider legs. Legs pulled in she was about the size of a quarter. (Sick.)

The kids loved her so I let her stay for another day, and actually started to feed her. We have flies. I am clean, I really am, I don't know how they get in, but they do. And they end upstairs pounding against my window trying to get out. So, every afternoon on my way down the stairs, I'd snag one and put it in the jar. It was getting fascinating to watch Crystal eat. (Jasmine named her after a few days.) And soon she started to build a web, and I started to like her.

She was easy to please and interesting to watch. And when we came home from school one day she had an egg sack! I just assumed that she had some sort of man spider friend on the outside that she visited before we found her. But a week later, there was a second one. I decided she was a faker. Like one of those ladies that buys dolls that look like real babies and takes them out into public. :) She had a strange personality, but I liked her. And holla for single moms, you know. She was strong and fast and after she ate she would lounge over her kill proudly (or in a food coma) for an hour or so. And she was at least trying to raise babies on her own, right? She had made a cool tunnel to keep them in.

A few weeks later Andy was over and was startled by another larger spider on my entertainment center. (Is this a good time to ask for donations to get my house sprayed?) It was disturbingly large and fast. We decided to see how Crystal would like a roommate, Ella.

Not so much it appears. They sat across the room from each other always. I'm sure glaring at each other with all eight eyes. Ella may be bigger but she was in Crystal's house. It only took a few days before Ella looked not so good and Crystal loomed over her like she did her flies.....

I knew she would win. Unfortunately, the guilt of cannibalism got to her, and she became uninterested in her food and eventually passed. Peacefully it seemed. I was on an emotional roller coaster that day anyway, and when I tipped her jar and her spider legs dangled it nearly brought me to tears.

I got over it in a day and threw the jar away, haha :)

Thanks gross spider, for entertaining my family and giving us something to watch together that wasn't on t.v.

P.S. I had to look through a lot of pictures to find one that looked like her and it was really disturbing, I have the heebie jeebies now and any noise startles me. AND I think she was poisonous...