I hate spiders. I admit I did quite like that ‘Spider In The Bath’ song, but the real thing gives me the creeps. I’m not so terrified that I run screaming from the room every time I see one, not quite. I just awkwardly back away while mumbling “nope, nope, no, nope, definitely not…”
I was on holiday in Spain with family recently, and after a few days a pair of half-conscious baby spiders decided to join the party and show up in our pool. They’d have benefitted from a pair of armbands – four pairs of armbands? – or a lilo, or something.
My niece also hates spiders, as it happens, but with a lot more vehemence than I. She took one look at these two damp intruders and started yelling the whole place down. As you may know, at a stone-built Spanish villa the echo quality is pretty good. Her crazed ranting made our little hideaway on the hill feel like Pamplona city centre.
She forbade us from throwing the poor soaked things over the fence. She would not consider having them roam free in the naya. She trampled all over our idea of maybe going out in the car and putting them a little bit further down the road. Our pleas to let the spiders go quietly were met with something almost approaching rage.
Ultimately, we did what my niece wanted. Which was to fill a large plastic bottle with rocks and repeatedly whomp the spiders with it until they were no longer recognisable.
That wasn’t even the end of the sorry saga, as it took an unusual amount of whomping to satisfy my niece that the spiders were actually dead. She couldn’t see any blood. None of the legs had fallen off yet. “It’s still moving, IT’S STILL MOVING! Hit it again!” The rest of us were in stitches. It sounded a little bit like we were murdering someone. I half expected the Guardia Civil to pay us a quick visit.
Once she’d also given the spiders a good pummelling with our makeshift tenderiser (just to be certain), all was calm again. Until two more of them showed up in the pool the next morning…
