Alice

As promised (although a little later than originally thought) here is the story of the epic battle with Alice.

First some context. Alice was a spider with a large body about the size of a jeans button. The body was fairly bulbous and it had spots on it. At first, Alice was living on its web which was above the flower bush and generally only came out at night. However a few weeks ago we had a torrential downpour and Alice went missing...until J spied her (not sure if it is a her but since we are calling it Alice I will say her) on latch of the gate. She had made a new home! Unfortunately it was not in a good place as J knew he would have to get rid of it so that N would not freak.

Now for those of you who may not know, spider killing requires the right set of tools. As described in the earlier post, for house spiders, the proper tools is a vacuum. Outside, apparently, the proper tools are a garden weeder (the hand weeders that dig out the weeds), gardening gloves and a pot.

J's initial strategy was to stab the spider with the weeder and hopefully kill it. Unfortunately things did not go quite as planned as I watched from the safety of N's arms on the stoop. The battle started with J jabbing at Alice and Alice falling....and then climbing right back up to the latch on her web. J tried a couple more times, but it seemed that the stabbing method was not going to work. N suggested trying to flick Alice onto the street, but J couldn't get the right angle. It was suggested to try and jab then cut the web and step on it, but J didn't want to step on it for fear of the squish it would make. N suggested using a nearby flower pot instead. So finally, with blood lust in his eyes J jabbed at Alice again and while she was dazed, knocked her to the ground and squished her with the pot. J: 1, Alice: 0.

Once may ask what was the function of the gardening gloves. I have many theories about that. The obvious is that if Alice had gotten bold and jumped on J's hand, she would have been on the glove, not actually his hand. The second is that it was cold and therefore they were needed to maintain dexterity in the hand holding the weeder. However, I know the real reason....one always needs to be fashionable and these are all the rage in outdoor spider killing fashion.

Til next time, stay fluffy!