I knew he'd come out of hiding eventually, having taken up residence in the firewood heap on the back porch about a month ago. He was a lot livelier then, not easy to catch, but I spotted him while getting the newspapers ready for recycling. Saw a telltale leg, so gingerly moved papers until I found the critter. He looked a little less feisty having found a cosy spot in the newspaper pile to snooze for a few weeks, then I surprised myself by convincing him to attach his eight hairy legs to a loooong stick so I could deftly remove him to the garden.
I trusted he had no friends or family sharing his space, and promptly removed the rest of the pile. Quite pleased with myself, as I do have a colourful history of dealings with Huntsman spiders. If I'm not taken by surprise I'm relatively ok, but the memory of driving in bumper to bumper traffic as one crawled up beside my face on the inside of the driver's side window, while the boys who were duly restrained by their seatbelts were trying desperately to remove themselves from said threat, gave me one of those 'someone walked over my grave' shivers.
Long drawn out saga, finally managed to pull over. It was dark, which obviously didn't help, but he conveniently crawled along the inside of the windscreen, and having to calculate in a nanosecond the right angle to hit him, the right amount of force which would squash him without smashing the windscreen, he copped the full fury of my indignation, terror and shoe. Suffice to say, desired outcome not quite achieved. I hit him, I know I hit him, but where did he go? How come you never have a torch in the car when you really need one.
With a few kilometres to go, cars streaming by, no one stopping to help the damsel in distress, and the boys curled up on the back seat being very brave, well, they were only four and six at the time, it took every ounce of resolve to complete the drive, with the expectation that at any moment an angry arachnid would take its revenge for being so violated. Arrived back in one piece, victim was found under the brake pedal, glad I hadn't known that, stunned but not quite dead, so he was removed forthwith, not by me that's for sure.
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