Facing your fears: Spiders

Fear and loathing in my basement (and wherever else I find them)

“There are currently forty-thousand described species of spiders on Earth. That is probably only half of the true species diversity. There are only forty-six to forty-seven hundred species of mammals,” explains Paula Cushing, Curator of Invertebrate Zoology at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.

I don’t know about you, but that figure makes me feel a little outnumbered.

I am spending an hour with Cushing and a couple of her eight-legged associates, learning more about spiders in an attempt to resolve my “relationship issues.” I have had a love-hate relationship with spiders from the get-go. Well, minus the “love” part.

Whether they are hanging out in my shower yearning to reenact that scene from “Psycho,” running across my face as I turn out the light, or lurking in the dark corners of my basement, I have always believed they are out to get me. Perhaps it is shameless species profiling, but their multitudinous eyes, disturbing legs and bulbous abdomens scream “dubious,” “shifty” and “treacherous” to me.

“I have no idea why people have a fear of spiders,” Cushing notes. “It’s really an irrational fear. We’re thousands of times bigger than these animals. If you’re queasy around them, you can just stomp on them. It doesn’t take that much effort to take control of the situation.”

Obviously, Cushing doesn’t advocate stomping on spiders, but any encounters I’ve had with them have generally ended with only one of us alive. When forced to dispatch them to their eternal damnation, I favor non-squishing methods. I learned at a young age that it is not diamonds but a stockpile of Raid that is a girl’s best friend. At least if you are a girl growing up in a basement bedroom. If no Raid or other bug spray is available, hairspray does well in a pinch (Viva la Aquanet! What? It was the 80’s!).

Maybe I’ve been out of line. Do I feel the beginnings of a change of heart? I mean, Cushing is the coolest scientist I’ve ever met. Decked out in spider web shirt and jewelry, surrounded by cabinets stuffed with specimens, walls covered with spider movie posters and computer screens displaying enlarged images of spider genitalia – or spider porn as the pros refer to it – she exudes logic and reason. And her words of logic are this: Spiders are not out to get me.

If that is true, why do they hang out in my shower? According to Cushing, they don’t want to stab me with tiny butcher knives as though they are Anthony Perkins. They just want a drink. “Spiders like to stay clean, but they aren’t using showers to do that,” Cushing explains. “They seek out your shower because they are seeking out the moisture. If you’re really a friend to spiders, you’ll give them a little droplet of water so they can get on their way.”

Cushing loves spiders, an essential trait for an arachnologist one would assume. “Spiders are constantly making me laugh,” she says. We talk a bit about the common spiders one might find in or around a home in Colorado, and she describes them with as much excitement as I would describe a Balenciaga gown at ninety-nine percent off.

“One that you’ll find in your garden or basement is Dysdera crocata. It has sort of a rusty red head and a grayish abdomen. The legs are rusty red as well. It’s a strikingly pretty spider in terms of its color pattern. It also has very large jaws that jut out in front.” It sounds more like a bulldog than a beauty pageant winner to me, but I’m not the expert.

One of the live specimens on the table in front of us happens to be a spider common on Colorado porches. Cushing removes it from its current residence, a plastic container, and allows it to frolic about on her hands. It makes a leap for the table, but to my great relief, it is quickly apprehended. “In the fall, I get a lot of questions about orb weaving spiders because of this species, Araneus gemmoides. These spiders are out there all the time, but earlier in the year, they are immature. People might notice the webs, but they don’t necessarily notice the spider until this time of year when it becomes mature and really, really large. This is actually a small animal,” she says, displaying the humongous orb weaver to me. “Sometimes they can get twice this size.”

Suddenly infused with bravery I ask, “Can I hold it?” Cushing quickly consents. She instructs me to place my hand on the table and then deposits the orb weaver upon it. The spider promptly attempts to run off. Cushing herds it back and it runs off again. Apparently, spiders are not like cats. This one did not gravitate towards the least friendly person in the room. I felt the sting of rejection but, amazingly, not of fangs.

“Spiders are very unlikely to bite humans,” Cushing informs me. “Regardless of what you hear in the popular media, what you see on the Internet, what you read in newspapers, spiders are very reluctant to bite humans. When bites do occur, someone has accidentally pressed down on a spider that might be hiding under a board or log, behind a cabinet, maybe under a box. If you press down on it, it’s going to feel pretty provoked and threatened. That’s when bites occur. They are provoked into biting to save their own skin.”

A few days later at the Butterfly Pavilion, the curator, Mary Ann Hamilton, echoes that sentiment. “We’ve been open a long time, and we’ve never had any visitors bitten.”

I have come to the Butterfly Pavilion to hold the famous Rosie, a Chilean rose hair tarantula beloved by Colorado children. I reason that if she has never bitten a child, she is unlikely to bite me.

Hamilton places Rosie gently in my hands. “If you’re feeling really uncomfortable, let me know and I’ll just take her away,” she reassures me. She takes great care to point out Rosie’s most endearing characteristics: her fuzzy mustache, her little eyes, her eyelashes, the fact that she never has to shave her legs.

I am just getting used to the feel of Rosie in my hands when Hamilton exclaims, “Oh! Stay still. She may want to poop on you… sorry about that!” The spider poop resembles chunky chocolate milk. However, having it in my hand is decidedly less disturbing than observing my nephew’s projectile vomiting of chocolate milk all over the kitchen floor shortly before Thanksgiving dinner. That kid would make a great antipersonnel grenade. Pump him full of chocolate milk, give him a shake, then chuck him over the wall into the enemy’s camp… but I digress.

I hold Rosie for fifteen minutes without a single bite – not even a nibble. In fact, she seems to like me. “Rosie is quite comfortable with you,” says Hamilton.  “You can see she is pulling her legs in a little bit, and that’s a sign of getting comfortable and cuddling in. I think you’ve made a new friend. She may not want to stay with us. She may want to go home with you!”

Since my time with Cushing, Hamilton and, of course, Rosie, I have given up shellacking spiders with hair styling products. In fact, I have become a regular cocktail waitress to the spiders in my home instead, offering them little droplets of water whenever I happen to spot one. I feel strangely pleased when they drink them. I would expand the menu to include tiny mohitos and daiquiris, but I don’t want a bunch of unruly drunk spiders trashing my place.

— By Angela Rose.
Rose writes a column, “Facing Your Fears.” Next issue: NEED.

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