A Spider Named Dave Meets the Brown Reclusinator

When we were moving into our house a couple of weeks ago, I had to rescue one of the movers from a very large wolf spider. He was honestly paralyzed by the sight of this spider that materialized from a dark corner of the garage. 

"Do you want me to kill it?" I asked him.

"Um, sure," he said, looking a bit embarrassed.

I took off my flip flop and whacked it. It was a big spider. I gave it two whacks for good measure. 

As I strutted away hoping to look like the stone-cold spider killer I fancy myself, I was thinking: "Geez. That spider was giant. Hope he doesn't have friends lurking about."

But he did. A couple of days later, I killed two very large wolf spiders in our basement. And this guy camped out just outside our back door for a bit. I decided to name him Dave. It seemed like a relatively harmless name for what I hoped was a relatively harmless spider.

Dave the Spider was much bigger than he appears.

Then we took a trip to Exploration Place, Wichita's children's museum. (By the way, this place was amazing. If you ever find yourself in Wichita, I highly recommend it.)

In one section of the museum we discovered some native Kansan creepy crawlies. It was the usual collection of snakes, lizards, tarantulas and insects that you see in museums touting local flora and fauna. 

Wait a sec. Tarantulas? I thought they only lived in the deepest, darkest recesses of the rain forest or desert or other place I don't ever plan to visit. 

Apparently not. Apparently tarantulas live right here in Kansas. Spider fans say tarantulas are basically harmless to humans. Nonetheless, learning that the Texas Brown Tarantula also calls Kansas home was most unsettling. 

As an added bonus, tarantulas leave their underground burrows during the fall months with the sole purpose of mating. In some places, you can actually see herds of them crossing the road. (I swear if I come across one of these swarms, I'm getting the heck out of Dodge. Incidentally, I might have rethought the whole Kansas thing if I'd been privy to this information three months ago.)

While the tarantula issue is terrifying and wolf spiders in my basement are scary, most troubling is the pervasiveness of brown recluse spiders here in the Heartland. Those speedy little suckers are poisonous, and apparently they're a real concern in these parts. 

Even though I hadn't actually seen a brown recluse in my house, I do have two little girls who, thanks to my propensity to name spiders, probably don't have a healthy respect for arachnids. 

So I did what any right-thinking person would do and called this guy. 

He's giving the thumbs up. He must be trustworthy.

That's Eric "Flint" Hills. He calls himself the Brown Reclusinator, and drives around in this awesome minivan.

No joke - the license tag says SPIDRMN. 

Name your price, sir.

Despite his somewhat ridiculous, but utterly memorable branding strategy, Flint knew his stuff. Apparently, the spiders you see crawling around your house are males in search of females, which like to hide out in attics and ceilings where they lay up to 300 eggs at a time. Great. So I may have hundreds of baby brown recluse spiders spending their infancy in my attic.

That was all the info I needed to let the Brown Reclusinator into my home. The annual treatment he recommended required a man in white, protective coveralls to spray spider-killing dust into my attic and basement ceiling. It also required us to leave the house for a few hours.

Now, take it from me, keeping two young kids, a cat and dog occupied for two hours is not easy. It's about as much fun as having a root canal or going through an IRS audit. See for yourself if you don't believe me.

So without a clear destination in mind, we headed to Sonic and everyone, including Annabelle, had a milkshake. Then we tried to go a playground where my placid, well-behaved rottweiler apparently terrified a mother so much that she quickly moved her children to a seemingly safer spot. (Surely I'm not the only person in Wichita with a rottweiler? I have seen an overabundance of little anklebiters yapping their way around my neighborhood, so maybe she is the city's lone rottie.)

Prefer afternoons on the couch.

But hopefully the brief inconvenience was worth it, and we'll be relatively spider-free for the next 12 months. Otherwise, the Brown Reclusinator and I will have to chat.

Prefers vanilla milkshakes.