Collective Soul 'Youth'

Spiders.

Why are people so afraid of them?

They’ve got eight legs. They have fangs. They can walk on ceilings. Some of them are venomous and can be considered among the World’s Most Deadly Creatures. And talk about eyes… Those jokers can have six to eight of them. But most spiders can’t see fecal. They rely on touch and vibrations.

And unfortunately, most people find all of those characteristics creepy and alien.

I’ve never had a fear of them. Oh sure, I’ve been startled one or two thousand times when they appear somewhere you normally don’t find a spider. But I don’t kill them. I don’t react with an immediate need to snuff their little lives out. I’ve even returned a Black Widow to the woods after finding her on the backdoor of my house. She didn’t seem all that deadly, but I sure as hell treated her eight-legged ass with great respect. If I learned anything from Alice Cooper and Vincent Price, it was that Black Widow spiders can kill me within seconds after biting.

I’ve heard about Brown Recluse biting people in North Carolina, but I’ve never actually seen one of those “Fiddlebacks” in person. So I think the odds of being bit by one of those babies are slim to none.

During the dry periods of the year, we’ll get some ants setting up shop just outside the house. They like to send in their marauders on a 24 hour schedule. So that’s why wolf spiders are welcome in our home. We want those spiders to feel like those long lines of looting ants are nothing more than a buffet. Put on a bib and have at it boys and girls!

Jamie has even taken to giving the spiders names. Actually, she only gives out one name… Every spider is known as “Petey”. Every so often you’ll hear “Don’t step on Petey!” ring out through the house.

We noticed a praying mantis was living and feeding inside the kitchen window and the storm window. We tried to coax it out, but she seems happy living and feeding where insects get trapped and die.

“Have you named this one?” I asked Jamie.

“Petey,” she answered quickly.

“That’s the all purpose spider name,” I said. “And this praying mantis is a female. She’s large and bright green. Males are smaller and on the brown side.”

Don’t ask me how I retained this information.

After she thought about it for a few minutes, Jamie gave our praying mantis a name… Myrtle.

Myrtle doesn’t move too much. She only seems to move 6 inches every day. I think she ate all the wasps that were opening up a branch location between the two windows. So Myrtle is free to hang out and munch all she wants.

BREAKING NEWS: Petey’s grandfather has been found hanging out on the wall. Jamie is talking to Grandpa Eddie as I write this. He has been welcomed and told to “hang out among us”.