Before I start this, yes, I made it through elementary school, and I know spiders are not insects. Anywho:
There’s a spider in my shower at home. It’s some long-legged variety: a BB of a torso with hair-thin legs bending outward. It lives up in the corner, high above the showerhead, and periodically spins tiny webs that I never see anything caught in. We have an agreement, this spider and I. It sits there, out of my way, and I don’t wash it down the drain—alright, that isn’t much of an agreement, I’ll admit, but it has become sort of a companion of mine.
It is strange, though, because I’m normally uncomfortable with any kind of tiny creature living in my shower. From moths, to lightning bugs, to ants: if I see one in my shower, climbing on the walls, I’ll usually shoo it out, past the curtain, or, if it’s particularly tenacious, wash it down the drain. But this spider, to me, gets a pass. I’m not sure why, for sure, but I think it may have something to do with how many bad situations I’ve seen the little fellow overcome. My first experience with the spider was watching getting its thin, fragile leg caught in a water droplet on the wall. It struggled to not slide into the torrent below, using its unhindered 7 legs to move in a manner imitating mad fingers typing on a keyboard. After 10 minutes or so, the thing had freed itself, and made its way up to the corner where it stayed. I know it’s silly, but that shower spider earned my respect, and, hey, maybe it’s been eating the other things in there that I don’t care for.
That happened 2 years ago. I’m not arachnid expert, but I feel like spiders aren’t supposed to live that long. Perhaps the creature I’ve been greeting on-and-off for 2 years is a relative, perhaps a child (I hope not, actually. I shiver at the thought of spiders reproducing in my house though, that’s too many spiders).
I know shower Spider is incapable of even comprehending my feelings of comfortable non-disgust, and that’s fine. Humans—well, Americans at least—have a problem with bugs. Maybe we’d be a little less freaked out my them if everyone had a friend with an exoskeleton—not a store-bought pet, just a bug that we let…exist. Maybe someday I’ll be friends with the stinkbugs populating my room, or the gnats that dive-bomb my lamps, or the moth that got caught in the bathroom.
I’m never going to be friends with centipedes though. Man are those things scary.