Disrupting the Circle of Life

Tracie and I came home from shopping the other day and there was a HUGE spider on the wall next to our door. This spider was bigger than my thumb, and without exaggeration, the biggest spider I've seen that wasn't a tarantula. I think it may have been a young acromantula, like Aragog from Harry Potter. Well, after bringing in the groceries, I took my trusty can of Raid out there and sprayed the sucker til he fell from the wall into the abyss of bushes below our apartment. I shivered a couple times as I tend to do when I come face to face with the Spawn of Shelob, and went back inside, thinking my problems were over.

What a fool I was.

You see, that spider had gotten that big for a reason. Unbeknownst to me, he had been eating a lion's share of flies, gnats, mosquitoes, and other of nature's mini-jerks that fly around our outdoor lamp. This past week, with their main predator gone, the gang of insects favorite hangout is now our lamp. We have to walk through a literal wall of bugs to get in and out of our apartment. I have disrupted the circle of life.

Still, I'm glad I killed or at least crippled the spider when I did. If I hadn't, there could very well be a spider the size of a Buick on the side of our house, developing sentience, and wondering what the fleshy pink insects inside the apartment taste like...