Spiderland

I always thought all of the jokes about spiders in the Harry Potter books were an exaggeration--for example, that Harry shared his cupboard under the stairs with spiders, that when he got dragged into a closet by Rita Skeeter he was showered spiders, each time he moved, etc.

Yet I've discovered in the last few days that spiders really are exceedingly common, at least in my house, which is very clean but quite old. Now that the weather has warmed up, I constantly see them rushing up and down the walls or hanging from the ceiling. Last night I was reading late in bed and caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked up and saw two little spiders scurrying over my bed. I shuddered--I don't mind them (after all, I grew up in the Arizona desert and barely flinch at killing a scorpion), but I don't want to share the covers with them. I quickly squashed one and the other got away for a few minutes, until I caught him creeping across my stomach. I guess it'd would've been humane to dump them out the open window, but one doesn't think about that when one is reading a suspense story late at night and is getting jumpy anyway. I killed another this morning when I found him exploring my feet.

I also seem to spend a lot of time clearing away cobwebs from surfaces in my room, either across the windows or from my guitar to the wall, even hanging down from the ceiling. It's not like my room is swathed in spiderwebs or anything, it's just that I catch the glint of fresh little webs strung about every day or so. I clear them away with nary a thought and little remorse. Is this normal? Is England really a very spidery place? Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in the garden with my friends when I saw a spider run up Julia's arm. When I mentioned it to her, she didn't seem to care.

All of this reminds me of a moment last summer, when I joined my extended family at an aunt's cabin in the Minnesota Northwoods. I inadvertently stuck my hand into a massive spiderweb on the dock, and my dad laughed at my exclamation of disgust.

"You know, I cleared that exact web away yesterday," he said. "These spiders are very quick."

You've got to admire their persistence. But despite the fact that I once played Charlotte in a production of "Charlotte's Web," and have since harbored a friendly affinity to the arachnids, they are NOT welcome to sleep in my bed.