Spiders!

Spiiiiiiiiiiiiders!!! Buweahhahahaha!

Ok, see, I’ve liked spiders most of my life. I have fond childhood memories of throwing carpenter ants into funnel spider webs and watching the spider scurry out and quickly start to suck the juices from the poor ant’s now paralyzed body. But apparently not everyone in this world has such nice memories of spiders. Now, don’t get me wrong… I hate walking through a spider web just as much as anyone else I know (the creepy crawly “OH ME GOODNESSSSSSS IS DE SPIDER OFF ME!?!? IS IT CRAWLING ON MY BACK!??!!? IS IT GOING INTO MY EAR TO LAY ITS EGGS AND EAT MY BRAINS OUT WITH ITS CHILDREN FOR RUNNING INTO ITS WEB AND RUINING ITS WHOLE NIGHTWORTH OF WORK!!!?!?!?! feeling that you get when running into a web…)

Don’t give me those looks, you know you have the exact same thoughts after running into a web.

Only, now, imagine the spiders ten times bigger and ten times more plentiful than in America. Before I came to Japan when I thought ‘spider’ I thought of a small, maybe half-dime sized spider that you sometimes catch sneaking out from under the refrigerator. Not so In Japan. Well, I take that back. Japan has those small kinds too, but they are the ridiculously scary-fast jumping spiders that hunt... oh I don’t know… birds or something. These jumping types I kinda like now, actually. You scare them and they bounce away like a toad. But anyway, back to the huge ones! These suckers span at least 4 football fields with their legs, and their webs are.. umm.. I dunno actual measurements, but probably as big as the Milky Way? Yeah that’s about right if I had to guess.

Ok, so, I exaggerated… maybe… a TEEENY bit. But, seriously, only a little. Anywhoo, after watching them grow, these spiders intrigue me now. When I arrived in Japan it was peek “OH… MY… WHAT THE HECK IS … THAT!!!!” (said while pointing at one of the huge spiders) season. The best way for me to describe these spiders verbally (although I am going to have pictures… if I can find them) are, well, WITH their legs they are the size of my palm, without legs, the size of my ring finger, aaaand they are basically everywhere you look. However, they aren’t always this big. It’s only in late august that they put forth their true colours (bright yellow and red. Nature’s way of saying “I r going to be killz0ring you” (translation into normal English, “I’m poisonous.”)

It’s this growing process that is really interesting to me. I was sad when they all suddenly disappeared during winter. But before we get to the growth process, one of the other interesting aspects of these spiders is the fact that they hardly ever move. Negating a visit by the typhoon monster (sometimes even normal rain didn’t dislodge them) I would place money on their being in the exact same place and web as before. When I first arrived, the spiders had already staked claims to what tree, post, fence or whatever was theirs, so it only took roughly three days to know which areas to avoid, when to duck, (and funny as it is) when to jump. (lets just say I sometimes took the path less traveled.) but from when I arrived till the death of these giants, the spiders stayed in exactly the same places and, apparently rebuilt identical webs when needed. Maybe they were the same web, I don’t know. I could believe it… because I can only see the webs of these spiders being damaged as a result of catching a bird… or two. I know, because I accidentally ran into two or three the first day of being in Japan. When I accidentally attempted to walk through one of these webs, it felt like my face was trying to force its way through a wall the density of something between Styrofoam and cement. If I was spider prey, these webs are definitely strong enough to catch a good three or four of me before needing replacement.

Like I said I hardly ever saw these spiders in motion, but there were a few times. There was one time when I was walking home late at night that I briefly glanced up from my cell phone and, to my surprise, saw one of these palm-sized spiders dangling from a single cord, clawing the air with all eight legs literally inches from my face. I also could have sworn I heard, in spidertalk of course, “Peekaboo! Walk one more step…please…I want… I.. want… to… to… eeeeeeeeeeeeeat…. your… your…your braaaaainseses…….Bwauehaehahahaha!!!”

The only other time I have ever seen one of these spiders move is when I was forced by the dorm authorities to clean my balcony before moving out (one of the standard requirements. Bah leaving a country is almost as hard as moving in!) I hadn’t cleaned said balcony (or been on for that matter, it’s a shabby thing barely worth the word balcony) all year, so when I opened my window to see the state that it currently was in, I wasn’t so surprised to see a few spiders living there. I was however surprised at the amount. There were twelve spiders hanging in, oddly enough, 16 different webs. I am not sure what the extra 4 webs were for, perhaps catching birds, or human babies, but they got knocked down with the rest. I used the remnants of a 2x4 I had smashed up earlier in the semester. (This may be mentioned in a different post--I’m not sure if I will get around to it yet though! Hehe) This whole situation was fun and creepy at the same time. With twelve spiders around, and me having to actually set foot outside on the balcony, I was always wondering if/where one was sneaking up from to extract its revenge for knocking down its web by killing me. But, as all people know, you gotta be extra careful with spiders, because they can be coming from below… or from the side… or from above… or from anywhere! I have often wondered who is more sneaky, a spider bent on killin’ a person who just knocked down its web or a ninja who just… well I dunno... wants to kill someone? Is that what ninjas do? I think so. Anywho.. yeah.. So in one year, that’s the only times I’ve ever seen these spiders move.

Now, I guess I should get to the growth process, since I DID say it was the most interesting part. Well, it is, but it’s kind of hard to explain. Basically it is interesting to me because when the giant yellow/red spiders disappeared I became extremely sad. But when spring… … … sprang (sorry I just HAD to use those words together :D) I replaced the sadness in my heart with an interest in these little green spiders I started to notice. These spiders were probably the size of a grain of rice, that’s how little they were. But anyway, I saw them all over the place, and had never noticed them before. I thought it was because I was too busy noticing the giant yellow and red spiders so I felt an odd feeling of regret toward them, but little did I know, these tiny green spiders turned out to BE the giant yellow and red spiders! That’s right, apparently when they are little, and haven’t the power to make the bird-catchingly strong webs as a defense against… well… birds, they stay a greenish colour. I knew spiders have leaf envy. But once they start getting bigger and bigger and… then MASSIVELY HUGE, they start to turn a little more yellow, and when they reach about palm size they add a giant dot of red to their stomachs as if to say, “RAWR! I R SPIDER! I HAVE RETURNED TO EAT DAVEEEEED’S BRAINS ONCE AGAIN!”
Anyways, so… yeah.

I like spiders.

[Hase-G] That’s good.

-Daveed