There Once Was A Girl Called Miss Muffet...

Peter Donegan's got a new yoke on his wall that silently beeps to scare off insects, mice, and other unwelcome guests.

We have one of these devices too. It works all right, and we've had no pest problem at all, except for that time my older sister came to visit, and the spiders.

UGH.

I hate spiders. I REALLY hate spiders, especially when we've got those big, fat, hairy, leggy sort that seem to be waiting in their corner for the bell to signal Round One before they come swinging for you. Like my sister. So, (I asked in Peter's comments) how do you get rid of the spiders??

He replied that he catches them and releases them into the wild. It seems like a kind solution but ineffective...it's never long before the same spider is back inside again, wiping all eight of its dirty feet on my walls.

DING! Round two!

Peter also mentioned the more usual solution, that of whacking the spider with a magazine. Ah, so that's what those glossy inserts in the newspaper are there for.

Unfortunately, whacking leaves a squishy curly-legged corpse that is far more inconvenient than a similarly-dispatched fly, as the dog won't eat it. Considering the things our dog will eat (crawly bugs, goat poop, his own vomit, four-month old raw egg, and My Little Ponies), the loathsomeness of a spider must be remarkable.

I'd do anything to avoid picking up a spider-corpse, even leaving it there until Himself walks away with it on the bottom of his slipper---but leaving it there only invites our youngest daughter to eat it instead. What idiot ever thought of making jelly candy in the shape of worms and bugs, anyhow?

So, no to the ol' catch-and-throw, and no to whacking. What else do you do with spiders?

Perhaps I could ask Santa to hypnotise them into helping with the housework, by taking down all their old cobwebs, and licking the windows clean. This Santa looks like he knows what he's doing.

If that doesn't work, we could make up a story about them and enter this Christmas Flash Fiction contest.

Or, we could write a limerick about him for Ken's blog:

There once was a happy wee spider.
Said the housewife: "I cannot abide her!
What a mean little trick,
She's making me sick,
By swimming in my Bulmer's Cider."

Ok, well, maybe not.

Hmmm...here's an idea. With seventeen school-age nieces and nephews to buy Christmas presents for, I'm thinking that I might be overlooking an opportunity to save money here....why not force the little hairy buggers (the spiders I mean) into the child-entertainment business by locking them up with a few sticks and perhaps a tiny swing, in mayonnaise jars?

Yes, the idea is coming together now....all it needs for the girls, is a jaunty bow on the jar lid and a customised adoption certificate complete with name: Sally McSpinster, Lucy O'Leggy, etc. This would make it the perfect Recessionista gift, n'est-ce pas? For the boys, I'll add a Certificate of Authenticity to each jar instead, attesting that this is THE very spider who bit Peter Parker and thereby created comic-book history. It's a very, VERY valuable spider.

In the hands of such children, the poor creatures might survive to New Year's Eve, tops. But at least they'll be going curly in someone else's house, not mine.

Unfortunately, this only accounts for the first seventeen spiders, and there are bound to be more. Many more.

Any other ideas?