In the last 4 months, I have killed 4 spiders in my house.

I make it a rule (that I occasionally break) to only kill inside spiders. I kill them when they are in my home, and leave them alone when I am in theirs. Unless a very big one is on me, or too close to me when I am outside, in which case I go a little crazy, and lash out irrationally, leaving dead spiders in my wake.

But there have been 4, very large spiders in my house this summer. And all related to each other.

The first one was in the bathroom, nestled inside the shower curtain. I didn’t take too much time to admire it; I quickly found something hard to put behind the curtain so that when I smooshed it, the curtain stayed put.

The next one was in the kitchen, on the outside face of a cupboard door. This was when I realized we were infested.

The two spiders were nearly identical in size and shape, and had the same characteristic pincers. For lack of a better word, at the time I said it reminded me of a scorpion. It had two big, fat front arms, like a crab.

The next one was in my bedroom, just sitting in the middle of my wall.

I photographed this one, to prove to everyone else that there was a spider problem. This was the 3rd spider of it’s kind living where we live! Invading our place of sanctuary.

(Sidenote: I’m not squeamish about bugs. Ants, beetles, flies- none of these bother me. Spiders bother me. I get a stomach-ache when a spider is around me and I can’t get away, or get it away from me. Just a clarification of my character.)

Anyway, a timeline: I was in my room, sitting on my bed, and saw the familiar dark blot on my wall. I quickly ran downstairs and grabbed a camera, went up and took the picture, then brought the camera downstairs to show my grandparents. My grandfather does not follow the same rule; I think he rather likes spiders. Inside or out, they are allowed to live. So I said to him, “If you want it to live, you have to save it. Otherwise, I’m killing it.”

And he huffed and puffed and went upstairs to save the little beast.

But the spider wasn’t there anymore.

My guts clenched; I bit my lip and felt itchy all over, like it might have jumped on me when I turned my back. It was going to nestle into my ear, or hide under my armpit, and get under my skin.

I swear I’m generally a rational person.

So my grandfather laughed and laughed, and went back downstairs while I hunted through my room for the thing.

Hours later, after I had stopped looking and stopped wringing my hands and breathed regularly again, I was back on my bed, sitting and looking through old magazines. And I saw a dark blot out of the corner of my eye.

That made the 3rd spider I killed this summer, a few weeks ago. Yesterday I killed the 4th.