The Visitor

I was putting the Little One in her car seat this morning when the Oldest One opened the door and said "Mom needs you right away! Hurry!" So I take the Little One out of the seat and we both go into the house while I'm wondering what is going on. Maybe there's a water leak? Or maybe a window was broken? I get to the entry way and my wife is standing by the front door which is in large part glass and pointing outside. She says "look." I don't see anything. She repeats her command. I still don't see anything. She remains pointing and I follow the direction of her index finger and I see it. A tarantula is crawling up the wall of our porch.

It was actually a juvenile...about the size of a saucer. My wife says "kill it." I immediately said "no way." Besides, it's outside and can't get in unless we let it in. I told her some stuff I think I saw on the Discovery Channel about how roaches and rodents can flatten their bodies to get into small crevices and that tarantulas can't do that. I don't know if that's correct but it sounded good at the time. I also said that tarantulas eat pests and are normally docile towards people and that it would go away on its own. She insisted that I go out and kill it and I told her that it would make a really big mess if I stepped on it and that it would probably only get mad if I sprayed it with bug spray or water. The Little One, who usually wants to keep every wild thing she sees (like roadrunners and toads) didn't want anything to do with the tarantula.

So after a few more minutes of discussion we left the tarantula to do its own thing outside and hopefully go away before we get home. And I just hope that it doesn't get into the house, because if it does and my wife finds it, I'm in big trouble. Now that the excitement is over I wish I had thought to at least take a picture or grab the video camera. Oh well, maybe next time.