Eeeeck!

Well, no sooner do I brag to my friend Carolyn (with whom I stayed overnight when I went to Boston recently for my friend David's birthday party) that I had been very lucky in not having problems with bugs in my rented bungalow, in the four years I have lived there...except, I said, for the very occasional spider in the bathtub...than I find myself invaded by spiders-in-the-bathtub. At least one a day for the past few days -- yesterday it was two, a mama spider and a baby. Where are they coming from?! There are no obvious cracks or holes. Carolyn had said she thought they might come down through the pipes. But if they were hiding out in the pipes, seems like they'd occasionally get washed out into the tub while I was showering, or rather, during that period of time when the water is rushing out of the regular tap, while I'm playing with the hot and cold nozzles, getting the temperature just right before switching to shower mode. This has not thus far happened.

I know all about spiders being "good" bugs, because they consume other bugs, but I have a rule: you can do your thing, but stay out of my sight! Crawling around in the bathtub is definitely breaking the rule, and death is the punishment. Spiders I've caught in there in the past I've usually finished off with a shoe, but these lately have been big guys (or gals); no way I was going to squash them with a shoe, then have to clean out the squashed remains. So I've resorted to canned ant-and-roach spray, which I've had forever (when I lived in my wonderful cabin-on-the-lake, one unwonderful thing about it were the ants that hung out in the kitchen), and which seems to work o.k. on spiders. They just curl up in a ball to die, making their removal -- with a paper towel -- a mess-free operation.

I'm sorry, but I can't be "green" -- or Buddhist -- about bugs. And being greeted by another one in the tub is one of those times -- like putting in/taking out air conditioners, or trying to set up a Christmas tree, or investigating scary sounds at night -- when I sure do miss having a man around the house.