The other night, I was sitting on the sofa and both dogs were stretched out on the living-room floor, when suddenly my dog Wynter jumped up and started chasing after something.
I couldn’t see what she was trying to catch, and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to see it, but whatever it was, it was moving faster than a roadrunner. I resigned myself to the fact it probably was a mouse, which wasn’t a pleasant thought. I mean, I remember a clerk in a hardware store once telling me, when I asked him about humane traps because I’d seen a mouse... “There’s no such thing as ‘a’ mouse.”
“If you see one mouse,” he said, “you can be sure there are more where that one came from.”
Anyway, my dog finally stopped running and I could tell she had something in her mouth. I grabbed a flashlight so I could investigate, even though every cell in my brain was screaming “Nooo!” at me.
Wynter then yelped and spit out whatever it was. I moved closer, one cautious step at a time, and aimed the flashlight at the body on the floor. It wasn’t a mouse. It was something much worse, much scarier, much uglier.
It was a big black spider.
My first thought was “thank goodness it’s dead and won’t be sharing my bed with me tonight.” My second thought was, “I had no idea spiders could move that fast!” I mean, this guy was the Mario Andretti of the spider world. And my third thought was, “I wonder if it has brothers and sisters here in the house somewhere…and they currently are plotting their revenge.”
To be honest, ever since someone from here in New Hampshire posted a photo on Facebook of a spider he found in his house, I have had nightmares. That spider had to be on steroids, it was so big, and until I saw that photo, I’d been blissfully unaware New Hampshire spiders could grow to be the size of horseshoe crabs.
So I haven’t dared to enter the Kingdom of the Spiders (a.k.a. my basement and/or garage) since. The mere thought of a spider like the one in the photo dropping down on me from the ceiling makes me hyperventilate and break out in hives. And I’m assuming it could build a web about the size of a regulation volleyball net.
I also recently heard that brown recluse spiders are living and breeding in the state. I’d never worried about them before because they were pretty rare in these parts, but a lot of weird bugs seem to be heading farther north all the time, probably in search or some fresh, juicy New England bodies to attack.
Brown recluse spiders, according to their bio, like to hide, which, I assume, is why they are called brown “recluse” spiders and not brown “extrovert” spiders. And if you disturb them with “Tag! You’re it!” during their game of hide and seek, and one of them bites you, your skin can turn black and die, along with maybe a body part or two.
When I read that one of the brown recluse’s favorite places to hide is in garages, well, that killed any inspiration I might have had to clean my garage…forever. Aside from dashing out to my car and driving off, I refuse to go anywhere in my garage now, for fear of what might be lurking in there behind some stacked-up lumber or old sheets of drywall and boxes of books. Everything can stay right where it is until it becomes fossilized, for all I care.
Even worse, on the news the other night, they were talking about yet another delightful-sounding spider making its way north. This one is another huge species known as the Joro (translation from Japanese: “demon spider,” which isn’t very reassuring) or the parachute spider because it can float hundreds of miles through the air on wind currents and then land…wherever.
With my luck, it will be down the back of my neck. 
THE PARACHUTE SPIDER
Most of my friends have retired to Florida, but if those parachute spiders ever do make it up to New Hampshire, I’m buying a parka and some mukluks and heading to Antarctica, which, according to Google, has no spiders.
It also has no permanent human residents...but that's beside the point.
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Sally Breslin is an award-winning syndicated columnist who has written regularly for newspapers and magazines all of her adult life. She is the author of several novels in a variety of genres, from humor and romance to science-fiction. Contact her at: sillysally@att.net.
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