Pet Spider
So one day, my husband was leaving for work, when he comes rushing back into the house from the garage. “Julie!” He yells. I’m still in bed, thinking, ‘Great, there’s something wrong with the car’, and roll over to my side to wait for my husband to come in with the bad news. He doesn’t come in though. Instead, he yells, “Where’s the bug spray?!” (to see pictures of what he needed the bug spray for read on) I opened my eyes and yelled back, “Why?” Then he yells back to me, “There’s a spider in the driveway and there are babies all over the place!” Wait a minute - if you can see the babies, that’s gotta be a big-ass spider!
Now…I hate spiders. I mean I don’t mind seeing them from afar - a very looooooooooong afar but I get the heebie-jeebies when I see them and if one gets on me - or I think there’s one on me - I’ll lose it. But, like I said, if you can see the babies, this spider was not an insect, but a pet. Bug spray was not going to do it and no one was going to step on the thing - perhaps running it over with the car might be a better idea. But then, something in my heart made me stop. It has babies, it’s large, and it’s not running away from the sight of a human.
I ran out in my pajamas to see this “pet”. I took the bug spray away from my husband and took a look at it. It wasn’t moving. But I wasn’t going to start poking at it either - just to see if it was still alive. True, the babies were everywhere - and even on the mama spider itself. I thought it might already be dead. Looking at it closer, which means from afar, I noticed it was quite hairy and greyish/brown, that it could be a wolf spider, a species that does carry their young on their backs. Wolf spiders are good - again, as long as they don’t interact with me.
My husband backed out of the driveway carefully, so as not to run it over. Yes, although I hate them, I can’t kill them - especially one this big - and I thought it was already dead - no use making a mess. I went back into the house and my husband went on to work. I had the heebie-jeebies all morning and had - I mean HAD - to go see it again - to make sure it was dead and not ready to come back into the garage. I mean, all kinds of questions were going through my head - where did it come from? From inside the garage? From inside the house? From the backyard? Where did it come from so I don’t go there!!! I went out to see it and it was gone. Gone I tell you!!!!! But where did it go???? I thought it was dead!!!!! So, what do I do? I go looking for it!!!! Am I CRAZY? If I were in a horror movie, I’d be the stupid girl (albight the pretty one) who goes looking for the noise that inevitably gets you killed! What was I thinking?
Anyway….
I turned to the right and there it was, next to the trashcan, sheltered. 
Ok…so it’s not dead. Great. Now what do I do…Do you think I went back into the house? Do you think I talked myself out of the heebie-jeebies? Do you think I could let it go? Nooooo! I got my camera (with the zoom leanse to view it from afar) and shot pictures of the darn thing! But it was so cool! You could see the eyes and the mouth and hair and the babies.
(Ok, so I’m getting the heebie-jeebies right now). I called my sister, who is a walking encyclopedia, to ask her about this newly aquired pet, and she told me all about mama wolf spiders. Evidently, they go into a “catatonic” state when the babies hatch and are trying to hitch a ride, so they won’t eat their babies. Then they carry the babies to a safe place and when the babies are ready, they finally leave. (Some of the babies were strong-willed when they hatch and say “yo’ word-up ma - I’m outie” and they take off on their own.) Needless to say - I still get the creeps from spiders, but couldn’t help but have some respect for this one. I went back inside and after a couple of hours went back out to check on her. She was gone - and this time I mean gone. But the question still remained…where? To this day, I don’t know…and that gives me the heebie-jeebies, too.
