D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
August 2010
Mega-Tarantula Versus Barbecue-Man!
There's no escaping the urticating monster!
Sometimes the universe arranges itself in ways that the word "coincidence" can't quite capture. For example, only the day before yesterday I put the finishing touches on Jay W. Sharp's fascinating story — with equally amazing photos — in this issue about "the desert's biters, stingers, stickers and poisoners." The text of the article, indeed, is still in my Microsoft Word's "Open Recent" menu, with the brief but evocative file name "ouch.docx."
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If you're one of those people who reads publications from back to front and thus haven't enjoyed Jay's story yet, I won't spoil it for you. But, among other things, he makes the point that our desert home is chock-full of critters as well as plants that can inflict painful wounds — or worse — in a dizzying variety of ways. The good news is that, compared to the creepy-crawlies infesting more overgrown areas, at least out here you can more easily see the dangers coming.
Take, for instance, the really, really big tarantula I spotted this morning perched on the screen — perched inside, where I was — of the outdoor kitchen that my lovely and handy wife recently completed for my cooking, grilling and smoking (the barbecuing kind, not the tobacco kind) enjoyment. As promised, the tarantula was impossible to miss. Happily, it had not crawled down behind my Weber kettle grill to lurk until I reached below to empty the ash bucket or something. Unhappily, the tarantula was impossible to miss and trapped inside with me.
"Typically, you will see the fearsome-looking tarantula most frequently during the summer months, often after a thunderstorm, especially when the male seeks a mate," Jay had written and I had just the other day edited. Oh, how right he was — and not only about the "fearsome-looking" part. It had thunderstormed the night before, and we were still enjoying a vigorous rain. I'd been admiring how wonderfully the roof my wife erected over the barbecue area had kept out the rain, as a matter of fact, when my admiration turned to horror.
All thoughts vanished of the brisket I planned to smoke despite the rain. (Neither rain nor snow nor even sleet will stay the true barbecue guru from his grill and tongs! Tarantulas, maybe.) I had no intention of sharing my grilling space with a tarantula that seemed to be getting bigger the longer I eyed it.
Especially one that might be seeking a mate. And one that was no doubt frustrated by the rather sparse tarantula dating scene (or so I hoped) inside my outdoor kitchen. I don't think e-Harmony or Match.com would be an option — our Wi-Fi peters out pretty quickly in the backyard.
So I did what any self-respecting he-man master of the great outdoors would do: I called my wife.
Regular readers of this column may be surprised at this point that my wife was not already out back, in response to my fevered screams, to deal with the Tarantula That Ate Silver City. Backyard critters — especially the nasty, biting kind — are, after all, her department. I've previously described, in fact, how she dispatched another tarantula — wayyy smaller than today's behemoth, as I recall it — by capturing it in one of those cases blank CD-ROMs come in. That spider had ventured in from the backyard and was preening itself on the door handle leading to the garage, making it arguably more threatening. Nonetheless, she spared its life — if not its dignity — by flinging it far down the hill.
The thought fleetingly occurred to me: Maybe that tarantula had bided its time, growing huge, and now had returned to exact its revenge! What was that Jay had written about the tarantula's "urticating" abdominal hairs ("barbed, mildly venomous and readily shed")? I was about to get urticated!
My wife, whose tender mercy had perhaps brought this fearsome vengeance upon my soon-to-be-urticated head, was out of town on family business. (What business, I thought, could be more important than protecting your husband from a tarantula on a vengeance-mad rampage?) So, as I rapidly retreated to the relative safety of the house, I resorted to telephoning her.
Thank goodness, she picked up on the third ring. Jay Sharp, you would have been next on my call list. Our outdoors columnist, Larry Lightner, would have been useless in this situation, since he's terrified of spiders. Why couldn't we have had something simple he could have handled for me, like a ravenous mountain lion? What good is it having columnists if they can't double as pest control?
After I gasped out my dilemma, my wife calmly (sure, easy for her to be calm, 1,260 miles away!) suggested I attempt to replicate her feat with a plastic container. I'd already considered squishing the thing — problem being, it was up against the flexible screen and might survive, even angrier. I'd also mentally inventoried the house's collection of bug sprays — but how much would be enough against such a monster? What if it simply fell off the spray-soaked screen, landing somewhere unseen where I couldn't be certain of my kill?
So, as loathsome as the thought of getting within urticating distance sounded, her plan made sense. In any case, further contemplation of my options was cut short as I spied the tarantula — yes, I could see it from well inside the house, that's how big it was! — ambling down the screen. In seconds, it might vanish under the newly built counters or behind the grill. The only solution then, of course, would have been to demolish the outdoor kitchen my wife had so lovingly built, or to simply turn it over to the tarantulas for use as a lovers' lane.
I had to act fast. Hanging up, I ran to the kitchen cabinet where we keep our thousands of mostly mismatched Tupperware and Rubbermaid containers, praying I could lay my hands on one that was not only large enough but with a top that fit. I dismissed the flimsy, two-cup Ziploc containers — this was the Godzilla of spiders I was dealing with, after all. Hastily grabbing a round, four-cup Rubbermaid container and a top I hoped would fit — no time to play at matching the little numbers inscrutably embossed on lid and container — along with a spatula, I dashed back to the scene of my confrontation with Tarantula-zilla.
Just as I stepped in out of the rain, the monster reached the wood at the base of the screen — seconds away from a near-infinite range of hiding places. I was thankful I'd though to snatch the spatula at the last minute. Donning an oven mitt I'd brought out in that gentler, tarantula-free time when brisket tenderness was my sole concern, I grasped the spatula and lunged.
Frantic spider scrambling ensued. In motion, its legs twitching, the tarantula looked even more like the stuff of horror movies. (Dammit, where's the SyFy Channel when you need them?)
Finally, I managed to flip the tarantula into the container. When its legs twitched inside rather than out, I popped on the top. Still uncertain of the top's fit, I moved the container and its writhing occupant to a firmer surface and hammered the top into place with the side of my fist. If both top and container were not each a "2," I was past caring.
I confess, at this point my heart was thudding in my chest. Is it silly to get so worked up over a spider I could (barely) hold in the palm of my hand (not a chance in hell)? Blame those horror movies. (Curse you, Kingdom of the Spiders! "There's no escaping their web of terror" — do tarantulas even spin webs?)
Heck, blame frequent Desert Exposure contributor Jay W. Sharp, whose words of warning were still echoing in my brain. Did the tarantula somehow know that now I was on to it and its dastardly urticating? That I could now spell "urticating"?
All I know is, next month I'm hoping Jay will write about butterflies.
When not barbecuing, David A. Fryxell edits Desert Exposure.