I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating: I do not fuck with nature. Every time I think of all the ways nature can kill you that have been documented, some new random website pops up on Facebook from some questionable site—but it has pictures—so I go down another rabbit hole of things that shouldn’t exist in nature, but since that other thing that shouldn’t exist does, I have to believe this thing that looks like a dinosaur in 2021 is also real.
But you know what’s always been real that I’ve never been that keen on? Spiders. I realize spiders are super useful for something or other and that if you get bit by the right one you can have an entire movie franchise. But most of the time when I see a spider, it just looks like it wants to eat me. Such brings me to my latest encounter with an eight-legged attempted murderer.
So boom.
Just the other day I was moving my baby stroller from my wife’s car into mine. I casually strode towards my vehicle, hit that “poppin’ trunks” button. I was ready to toss this stroller in the back so that, should I decide to, I could get my stroller gang-gang on with other similarly situated strollers. I’m not sure if that’s a pun or not; if it is, I definitely did not intend it. One might say, it was no pun intended. That is, if it’s a pun.
Anywho, as soon as the trunk door went up on my sizable family SUV, I noticed something I didn’t want to notice: a big ass spider web had been erected. And not just like some strings, but an elaborate architectural design. And I was shook. In fact, I was so shook, I didn’t even think to take a picture of this marvel inside my truck. I just started hacking away at the web like a madman.
Look, I’m spider-hesitant under most circumstances, but when it comes to Riding In Cars with Spiders I’m anti-spider all day, and twice on Sundays. There is nothing like rollin’ down the street, smokin’ indo, sippin’ on gin and juice ONLY to notice something dangling in front of your face and when your eyes do that thing where they autofocus, you see a spider dangling literally in front of your face. You say some shit and then he says some shit but it’s your car, so you—while driving, mind you—try to swat the lil nigga into death only to realize you missed or he took that shit like a G and now there’s a potentially pissed off spider in your car. Is it under your leg? Is it on the other side of the steering wheel? Is it in your shirt? Who the fuck knows. All you know is that there is a spider in your car, living, crawling and ready to test out your defensive driving skills. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’ve pulled over on the side of the road before so that I could locate and terminate the shit out of a spider that surprised me in my car. More than once, actually.
Honestly, and I know there’s no data on this since dead men tell no tales, but I wonder how many single-car accidents are caused by a random ass spider just hopping on off the dashboard onto a person’s hand out of nowhere sending the driver into a full on panic mode. I’d wager it happens more than we think.
So with all of those thoughts, prayers and concerns in my mind, I got to hacking that spiderweb realizing a few things: 1) I had no idea where in my car this spider was, but any spider making that kind of web was going to basically attempt to murder me at some point while I was driving; 2) the web was in the trunk; two of my kids car seats are in the third row and then my infant is in a car seat in the middle row. Let’s say this spider showed up and scared the living shit out of my children. They’d be trying to take off seat belts even if we were in traffic and I’d be trying to regain control of my car. It would be a mess. And what if the spider somehow got into my baby’s car seat?
So I got to work. I started throwing everything in my car onto the ground. I grabbed one of those outdoor folding chairs and opened it up and I saw probably the world’s 13th biggest spider. OK, it wouldn’t even rate but to me this shit was too big to be in my car. And what is that? Is this spider ROLLING UP AN EGG SAC IN MY CAR?????????? IS THIS SPIDER ABOUT TO UNLEASH A LEGION OF BABY SPIDERS INTO MY CAR THAT WILL GROW UP INTO BIGGER SPIDERS THAT MIGHT ALL DESCEND UPON MY FAMILY OUT OF THE BLUE?
Fam, this spider was trying to murder me for real. Can you imagine driving down the street, minding your own business then all of a sudden your car seems infested by spiders??? What would happen if my kids, sitting in their third row all of a sudden saw 10 spiders come out of the back and start crawling towards them. We’re talking a calamity here. A real one.
Basically, this pregnant—or however you speak of spiders about to give birth—was trying to put my family into a Jordan Peele movie. The only thing is, when I yelled “Get out!!!!!” nobody would ever know because when my car took out a tree, folks would just think speed was the problem.
So how did this end?
Raid. That’s how it ended. I unloaded a whole can of Raid. In my car, too. I took everything out and wiped it down and prayed that this spider didn’t bring one of his homies along who was chillin’ in the front eating remnants of whatever snacks my kids dropped into the car. You might argue that once I got the spider out of the car that I should have let him go, and you will have a point. I, however, was not thinking clearly. I’m lucky I didn’t TORCH my whole car and call the insurance company while I had the lighter in hand. I was real close; I strongly considered that option.
For now, I think my car is safe or at least ginormous-spider free. I hope so. All I know is had THAT spider dropped down and got his eagle on while I was driving, I have no idea what I would have done but it wouldn’t have been the wise, smart and/or sane decision.