Spiderguy

A wee little spider has made my shower caddy its home. I don’t mind the smaller spiders; in fact I think some are quite cute. It’s the daddy longlegs variety, the ones with mile-long legs and a pinpoint size body that make my flight instincts go on overdrive.

And the gigantic ones.

There was one such goliath, resident in my last but one aunt’s toilet in Udupi. It was huge, and by huge I mean the extended family variety – about 7 feet across. Well, OK, that was the size of it in my nightmares. In actuality, it was as large as my palm and mind you I have a large palm. It was the muscular kind. You know, six-pack abs and beefy biceps and triceps and forceps and…and hairy all over. Going to the loo was an ordeal for me. I complained once or twice to my folks but they said it was no use chasing it away really. It will come back or another eight-legged citizen will occupy the premises. Loo ceilings it seemed, were much in demand among these buggers.

In Udupi you cannot have a spider-less loo. No mater how fast the town is growing, no matter how up-and-coming it is, at heart, Udupi is still a dear little village with all the rural trappings, including un-despiderable bathrooms. For all I know the beefy spider was just as scared of me with my wary eye glued to it all the while I was in the loo unlike others who probably never gave it a passing glance. Eventually, my aunt moved to a brand new house and so far I have not seen any spiders in her toilet, which is not to say there never will be any.

Coming back to my current co-tenant, I really wonder why he has decided to make his home so close to the shower. Every time I turn on the shower which is literally a foot away from him, I can see him holding on to his web, being swung about from the force of the air, being roughed up to within an inch of his life.

What thrill does he get out of this? Does it make his blood race, this living on the edge? Does he have any blood at all? I’m sure his legs are narrower than the width of a blood cell. His body probably has a grand total of ten red blood cells and two white. I wonder if the doctor will diagnose it as leukaemia should a third white cell appear.