I came home from a lovely evening at the Beanery writing papers and chatting with Zoe to a spider the size of a basset hound on my living room wall. Really, that big, you ask? Yes, that big, but with twice as many legs and without the floppy ears. We sat and stared at each other for a few moments, not really sure what to do about each other. At least, there was uncertainty on my part - I'm fairly sure his thoughts were something along the lines of how on earth he was going to build a web big enough for me.

I frequently have these moments where I have flashes of my friends finding me in a week or two, the cause of my death being a combination of stubbornness and singlehood. They finally realize they haven't seen me around, the neighbors start to complain of a smell, and someone finally puts it together. In these scenarios, I'm invariably found half-eaten by a cat I don't have. They assume my place has been ransacked, until they can't find any sign of foul play and realize that I voluntarily live in disaster. I imagined it happening once when I couldn't get the lid off of the spaghetti sauce - images of my body clenching the bottle, detectives scratching their head while my cellphone sat two feet away, a cat mewling in the corner. And again with this spider. I imagined having a horrible infection from his bite, having to amputate my own arm in my bathroom using a home-made tourniquet and my serrated bread knife, only to die of sepsis a few days later anyway. And again, the scene with the detectives, the cell phone, and the mewling. "If only she wasn't alone," they'd say. "Alone?" someone would counter "- the fuck. If only she would have called for help."

Now, I've heard of these giant valley spiders before. But never them being the size of a Volkwagen Bug, like the one sitting quietly on my wall. I've even seen a few the size of a half-dollar and done the obligatory yelp before scooting them outside. I'd go so far as to say I consider myself a spider advocate. I pet Eric's tarantula's, I'd sleep on the floor of his apartment even though I knew they had escaped. I always let house spiders go outside or ignore the as they crawl across my desk/wall/whatever. But I was quite certain that an arachnid the size of a full-grown oak tree was not going to fit back under my couch, at least without me noticing. No how, no way.

As I search for a way to subdue him - shotguns, horse tranquilizers, explosive harpoons - the images of the DIY amputation come back and I swear I hear a meow. My first impulse is to call the nearest male I can think of to come take care of this, not unlike the spaghetti sauce situation. But then I imagine how stupid that phone call could be:
"Hello?"
"Hi. Can you come over?"
"Sure... What's up?"
"Well, I have this thing..."
"... Thing?"
"It's a spider."
"You're calling me for a spider?"
"It's the size of an aircraft carrier"
"Can't you just squash it?"
"You're underestimating the size of this spider. And even if I did, what happens when itbitesmeandthenI havetoamputatemyarmandthensepsisandIdieandthenthecateatsme?!"
"... ... When did you get a cat? Seriously, just have the cat take care of it."

I'm fairly certain at this point, the spider has eaten my imaginary postmortem cat. So I resign myself, grabbing a very large container from the kitchen. I'm pleased to see the spider hasn't moved an inch, no doubt deep in thought designing his master web. I sneak up on him veeeeeeeery slowly, put my container in place, and -thunk-.

Nothing to it.

I slip a piece of paper between the cup and the wall, and wrestled the cup-spider-paper sandwich outside. I hadn't realized that something the size of the island nation of Guam would fit so well in a 22 oz Starbucks cup, or so well in my trash can. Yes, technically he's alive and outside, but I figure this way I've saved the rest of the world. If the SPCA wants to talk to me, they're going to have to get through him first.