I had maintained a cease fire with the spiders for a couple of decades. It was an uneasy truce, of course – it’s difficult for them to maintain the terms of the accord, which were simply: if you don’t let my wife see you, I won’t fire.
Oh, yeah: I should probably note that I prefer to combat bugs with my BB gun. The advantage in stand-off range easily makes up for the bad PR at home. Of course, I make every attempt to make these operations as covert as possible.
And so the truce continued. If I’d spy an advanced scout, I might fire a warning shot with a rolled up newspaper – just as a reminder. Oddly enough, it wasn’t the domestic spider clan that launched the epic offensive. Even more oddly, they didn’t attack my wife – they made a full frontal assault on my main body. And now that I think of it, that term applies literally!
I had spent a day camping
with some friends out near Jackson. Not the kind of "camping" that requires $300,000 in equipment and a few tanks of gas. I’m talking a survival knife, a match and a couple quarts of water. (In all honesty, there were probably some franks, chips and a beer or two as well, but that’s beside the point.)
In the morning I awoke a bit groggy… and late. So instead of rolling my sleeping gear up neatly…
Yeah, so what?! I had a sleeping bag. I also took a size 12 green rubber army overboot – left, if you must know… what else was I going to use for the beer and ice? Sheesh, not every camping trip has to be high-adventure!
…oh…
…I just wadded it in a ball and threw it in the back seat.
The weather was just about perfect, so I left the windows down… yeah, as in: they weren’t ever up all night… and enjoyed the trip home.
Even though I was in a leisurely mood (and a bit on the groggy side), this was during a phase of my life when driving too fast was just a standard procedure. I thought the sign "kill a road worker 5 years $15,000" referred to a reward paid out in the form of an annuity! And as the old joke has it the two seasons in Michigan are winter and road construction. This wasn’t winter!
About ten minutes into the drive I felt something crawling on my leg, below the knee. There was nothing there, of course. It was just a combination of that grimy, slept-in-the-woods feeling and the wind blowing through my car. Ten more minutes and I felt it again, this time in a different place. Again: nothing there. After about the first hour of this repeating I started laughing at myself. I was letting my mind get the best of me.
Within a half hour of home, still among the orange-barrels that define a Michigan summer, I noticed a black thread had come loose in the brim of my ball cap… my all red ball cap…
I’m not sure of the time that elapsed from the split second that the wolf spider used the leverage of that one "thread" to throw the other seven and the rest of his mass from the top of my hat brim to the bottom – standing there facing me, each of us upside down to the other. I do know that enough time elapsed that whoever it was that took over piloting duties while I was locked in mortal combat allowed the car to drift two lanes of orange barrels deep into the construction area.
(Oh, don’t worry: no one ever actually works in these construction zones. They’re just there to protect the potholes.)
It took some time for me to calm back down – but I did regain control. I got control of the car back from my imaginary copilot as well as controlling my own adrenaline level. In fact, I regained my composure to the point that when I felt another one on my leg, I was able to remind myself of the earlier phantom bugs. "There’s no way there are more of those things in here. Get control of yourself, wimp!", I told myself.
Nope: he had a wingman! Imaginary copilot deployed: again… Screeching tires (from somewhere): again… Hand to leg (to leg, to leg, to leg) combat: again!
I won the fight, but I never did find all sixteen legs!