In the meantime, I kept asking for resumes and information on prospective guest bloggers, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He said they were working hard on setting up their franchise process and I’d “just have to be patient.” And while I was impatient on behalf of my legions of faithful readers, the delay has been okay because I’m busy with a new job and summertime stuff.

And then Kurt called me right in the middle of my vacation this week and said he was in town and we had to meet ASAP. Like, right now! So I interrupted my long-planned project of building new display cases for my extensive collection of Hummel figurines to drive down to the Eagan Budget Host Inn. He apologized that his rental car had broken down so that we couldn’t meet closer to my house, yet he wouldn’t budge from a meeting time that had me out on the road at the height of rush hour. He said he had meeting room facilities booked for a special kick off presentation.

I parked next to an old Ford Fiesta in the hotel lot. Maybe a 1980′s model? Rust-enhanced red. A guy in a nice suit (as far as I could tell; I’m not a big fan of sartorial plumage) was leaning into the open hatchback, rummaging through a number of boxes and bags and loose debris. He came up with a laptop case, slammed the door shut, and with a look my way, managed to convey his disdain for my ’98 Saturn (also red; no rust).

I followed him inside. He sat down in the waiting area. I approached the front desk. When I started asking about the meeting room, Fiesta Suit Guy jumped up and was at the desk in a flash, cutting off the clerk’s response.

“Hello!” he said, thrusting his hand out. “You must be Mr. Carpenter! I’m Kurt Bill!” I shook his hand and he led me over to the chairs while the woman behind the desk frowned at him. “It’s so nice to meet you in person. Thank you for coming down on such short notice. Travel arrangements! You know how it is.” He nodded inclusively as if we belonged to the same elite club, sitting there in the Budget Host lobby. He gave no indication that he recognized me from the parking lot.

He glanced at the clerk and lowered his voice. “I’m sorry, but there’s been a mixup with the meeting room. Double-booked.”

The woman said, “Sir, I told you, there are no conference amenities here.”

He opened his mouth as if to reply to her, but then smiled dismissively and forged ahead. “Anyway, I hope you don’t mind meeting here. I can still show you the presentation on my laptop.” He grabbed at one handle of the laptop bag and it fell open, spilling the computer, several cords, and some file folders and loose papers onto the floor. He set the laptop aside and hurriedly shoved everything else back into the bag.

He booted up the machine and made small talk as he searched for his presentation. “Hmm. Where did it go?” He tried calling his office to see if someone might have a copy of it, but no one answered his phone calls, texts, instant messages, and emails.

I said, “Let’s just talk. I don’t need to see the presentation right now.”

“Oh, no! I’ve come all this way and you’ve been waiting so patiently for this. Uncle Winston will be very unhappy if everything isn’t handled professionally and according to plan.”

“Really, it’s okay,” I said. “Do you have any leads for me? I want to get someone writing for the web site sooner than later. Things are getting pretty stale lately.” (See, readers, I’m on your side.)

He was shaking his head: no, no, no. “Scott. Man… Tell you what. Give me a day or two. I’ll try to get the presentation from our admin assistant and get things more organized for another meeting this week before I leave town. I should have my new rental car by then and can meet you on your side of town. Please give me another chance.”

(I didn’t have the heart to mention the Fiesta and ask which rental company handed out 25-year-old cars.)

He rebuffed all my attempts to put him at ease and have a casual conversation about the recruiting process. I explained that it wasn’t a big deal. I just wanted to find a good guest blogger. MGR didn’t have to make a big production out of this. They’re in the startup/pilot phase. I understood that everything wasn’t tuned and production ready yet. None of this helped his state of mind. He seemed almost on the verge of tears. I wasn’t thrilled about interrupting another vacation day, but I agreed we could meet again later in the week.

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, Scott. And please don’t say anything to Winston or the other partners before we get a chance to work through some more of the preliminaries.”

I said sure, whatever. I resented the wasted time, but felt sorry for him and tried not to show it.

And then he never called me back. He sent a brief email on Friday saying he was sorry, but he had to head “back to the ranch.” He again implored me to keep things between us, for now. Which is fine with me, for now, although I guess it depends on whether or not Winston J. Thorpleton III and the others are reading my blog.

In conclusion: it looks like it may be a while before we’ll get our new guest blogger. I guess we’ll “just have to be patient.” I’m willing to play along for now. As far as I know, this isn’t costing me anything, which is a key selling point. Let’s see what happens.

Thanks for your understanding. I’ll try to expedite things and post updates more often.

It’s been a month since we lost Fritzi, and I want to apologize for being slow to start the search for the next guy. (Or “gal,” of course, but I think we can agree that guy is inclusive of anyone and anything, right?) Life has been intervening, as usual, and there was a certain amount of fatigue from the whirlwind tenure of Fritzi.

I haven’t been looking forward to all the interviewing and evaluating and decision-making. Having a guest blogger was supposed to make things easier. I want to sit back and let them do the work. The hiring process is just more work for me and tedious work at that. You wouldn’t believe the paperwork around here for acquiring headcount.

But! I’m committed to delivering you quality programming. For free! So I’m back on the job.

I decided against going the advertising route this time. Instead, I’ve retained the services of Mind Grapes Recruiting. (Although don’t let me fool you into thinking I was proactive about this. They came to me, oddly enough.)

More (occasional, possibly sporadic) updates to come!

For now you can read more about my new partnership with MGR on their page…

I hoped to hear from Fritzi by now, but she appears to have dropped out for good. No new posts, as you can see. No tweets since yesterday. She hasn’t answered my emails. (Not that she was very good about that after getting her author access.)

Let’s hope she’s okay. We don’t know that Hildi has anything bad in mind for her, although the woman seemed just a bit unhinged. And let’s also keep the other spiders in our thoughts. That Nolan guy is probably well over the edge and bent on mass spider murder, now.

Despite her deception in securing the guest blogging spot, I appreciated Fritzi’s contributions. She did the job I “hired” her for, which was to post more frequently and liven the place up. She had a “quest for freedom” that I could relate to. I think some of my regular readers enjoyed her tale also.

Great job, Fritzi. You’re welcome to come back anytime, if you can extract yourself from your current predicament, and have anything more you want to say.

So! Now what am I going to do?

I had expected more mileage from my first blogger. $5,000 in advertising only got me 10,800 words from Fritzi. That’s $0.46 per word. Kind of spendy. One to three cents per word would be more sustainable.

But I think the experiment was a success, and I’m going to continue with the guest blogger program. I’m starting the search and selection process again. This time I’ll spend more time vetting the candidates.

I wish I could give you an estimate on when a new blogger might start, but the process will have to take as long as it takes. I’m sorry for the wait, but finding the right person (or bug, or whatever) is a “Critical Success Factor,” as they like to say in Corporate-Speak. Hopefully the next guest will have a longer stint.

Be sure to subscribe via email or feed so you’ll catch when the new recruit starts! And in the meantime I’ll be posting my own feeble thoughts here and there to keep the lights on.

Let’s see…

Selection process.

Where to start?

Look! Here in the mail today, there is another offer for a free $100 of Google AdWords…

The man rolled his eyes. He said he would be right back, and went upstairs.

I thought: I’m in prison, you daffy broad. You put me here.

I still didn’t trust her. Lots of happy-happy earth-friendly talk, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find she had plans for mounting me in a display case on her wall. She leaned on the counter and was about to say something, but then the man returned with his laptop.

“I have something to show you,” he said, setting the laptop down on the counter.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I found this interesting web site last night.”

“Okay…” the woman said. She seemed wary.

“Now, I just want you to know that I was okay with keeping this spider around,” he said. “Not thrilled, but I was willing to try it, for you.”

“But…?” she said.

“Well, just see what I found. I really like you, Hildi. I don’t want you to be mad, but I think we have to kill the spider.”

“What? No! She’s so beautiful. And she’s harmless. You can’t kill her.”

Yes! She was an ally after all.

I worried how she might react to my posts about hunting the man. Maybe she would concede that I was a menace to humans, and reluctantly decide to put me in her display case sooner rather than later.

Oh, Hildi, I would never hurt you.

The man looked pained; scared. Of losing her? “Just look,” he said, turning the screen towards her. There was a browser open, pointing to my first post on this blog. “I was shocked to find this, but everything made sense once I read it. I think you’ll agree— please read it.”

The woman frowned and began reading. After the first post, she glanced at him as she moved to the next, and then scanned the next couple of posts, looking back and forth from screen to man.

“This is amazing,” she said.

“I know!”

“This is really something. Horrifying.”

“I know!” the man said again. “That stuff I told you about the spiders– it was premeditated. This spider — Fritzi — she’s been trying to kill me.”

“No, that’s not it,” the woman said. “It’s amazing that you would write all this and try to make me believe it came from a spider.”

“What?”

“How long have you been working on this?” She clicked through a few more posts. “This is really insane. It’s funny how you can misjudge someone. Is this a joke? Should I be laughing?”

“No! I just found the blog last night–”

“You found it.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I got an anonymous email, warning me… about…” he trailed off.

“You’re crazy. You’re sick. I’m getting out of here.”

“No, don’t go. Hildi, I— please. I swear I didn’t write that. I can imagine how it might look to you, but I think it’s real.” He pointed at me, saying, “She’s writing this. No one else would know the things she’s writing about. Look! This last entry wasn’t here earlier. It’s from this morning, about when I confronted her.”

The woman stared at him for several long, uncomfortable seconds, before saying, “I’m taking the spider with me, and I don’t want to hear from you ever again.” Then she picked up the jar and started towards the door.

Oh! You should have seen the look on the cat’s face! And the man’s! He was destroyed. Oh, well, Nolan. It’s better to have loved and lost, I guess.

After some more desperate pleading, we were out of the house! I was saved!

I thought briefly about my spider sisters and brothers left behind. Now the man knows. But there’s nothing I can do to help them anymore. Too bad for them, but I can’t say I’m feeling overly guilty about it. Maybe they should have tried working with me last night instead of taunting, scolding, and abandoning me.

(I do feel bad for Gretchen and some of the other young ones. I think now she had wanted to help me. I hope she’ll be okay.)

The woman placed me on the front passenger seat of her car and drove away. The jar rolled with the movement of the car, and I hoped it might roll off and break, giving me a chance to escape. As if anticipating my thoughts but not my desire, she said, “Don’t worry, Fritzi, that jar won’t break very easily.”

Fritzi?

“That was a close one,” she said. “Good thing he didn’t kill you before I got there, huh?” She looked over at me, smiled, and winked.

Wha—?

“I’ve been reading your blog all along,” she said, turning her eyes back to the road. “I hacked into your web site and found your IP address, which soon led me to the house. I got close to Nolan so I’d have a chance to meet you. What an extraordinary specimen you are. So beautiful. So talented.”

While flattering, it also felt creepy that she had been stalking me. And I didn’t like the way she said specimen.

(But I have to admit, I was impressed with her leet haxor skillz.)

A new song began playing on the radio and the woman started tapping the steering wheel. “I’m sorry. I thought you’d be safe there for a few days, while I got things ready. I was so lucky to find your blog, and then you. I have big plans for you, Fritzi.” And then she laughed and giggled.

On the radio, the song’s chorus started…

It was an itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikini…

Which caused her to laugh some more, saying, “They’re playing your song!” And then she clumsily ad-libbed her own chorus:

“She was an itsy bitsy teeny Fritsy creepy barn-y funnel weaver…”

Which prompted more laughter and giggling fits.

The car eventually stopped. She reached into the back seat and produced a brown paper bag. She put my jar into the bag, saying, “Be patient, little one.” She closed it up and I could tell I was being carried somewhere, and then set down, and it has been dark and quiet for a long time.

I finally decided I had to post an update, but now at last, my spiPhone battery is down to the vapors.

Please help me, if you can, somehow—

“Hi, Spider!” he said to me. It was really too much. (I think the cat agreed, but for different reasons.) “Guess what? Hildi called.”

Hildi?

“She’s coming over right now!”

Apparently the woman’s name was Hildi. What kind of human has a name like “Hildi?” I wondered why he was being so chatty. Were we suddenly best buddies? Was he trying to get on my good side to win favor with the woman?

After feeding the cat, he went to make tea!

(Finally!)

He filled the kettle with water and put it on one of my rigged front burners. I almost did a jitterbug, thinking about all the dried up beetle parts and sawdust waiting to combust.

With his hand on the igniter, he took a step back, and appeared to be leaning away. What was this? But still, he turned the knob!

There was the tick, tick, ticking… and — a flash of flame! But that was all, and now the burner was running normally. The man said, “Whoa. What was that?” And, “Ew. What’s that smell, Kitty?” He eyed the stove skeptically for a minute, but then went about making toast to go with his tea.

That was all? I got myself trapped in a jar for that?!

“So that was it, huh? That was your big plan?”

It took me a moment to realize the words weren’t coming from inside my head. I looked up and jumped. He was standing over the jar, smirking at me.

“That’s right,” he said. “I found your little blog, Ms. Webber.”

Oh my goddess! How did he—?! And then the cat jumped up on the counter, positively gleeful about the unfolding confrontation. Could the cat have tipped him off? (I should have kept a closer eye on her browsing activities.)

“It was the strangest thing,” he said. “Last night I was looking for email from Hildi, but I got one instead pointing to your web site. I almost deleted it as spam, but then noticed it was a warning about a spider.”

The cat! It must have been the cat. Damn her!

“Interesting reading,” he said. “Kudos on your first two tries, by the way. But this one… pretty lame. I wasn’t that worried about it. I thought it would be fun to make you think you had a chance. I wish you had a facial expression I could have seen when it didn’t work!”

And I thought a gloating cat was bad enough.

I felt a rising panic. I had been so optimistic after my earlier near-successes, but now it was starting to hit home, the predicament I was in. The cat looked hungry and meaner than ever.

“Now you will die, of course,” the man said.

The cat licked her chops. My heart started vibrating faster. I might get away if he released me for the cat to do the dirty work… but I didn’t feel very confident. I felt low. Not only had my plan failed, again, but the man had mocked me. Maybe I would be better off dead.

“But not yet,” he said. “Hildi needs to see your blog for herself. She’ll understand then that you have to be dealt with, for safety’s sake. A calculating killer spider is creepier than I ever could have imagined.” And then he smiled, saying, “But! This has actually worked out just fine. You’ll be gone and Hildi won’t blame me for it. And I’ll make certain there will be no more spiders in the house for her to find.”

Then he cheerfully sat down and read the paper while drinking his tea.

(I took the opportunity to spin this post out. I wonder what they’re saying in the shelter right now after his little speech.)

The doorbell rang, and they’re gabbing at the door. I don’t think I can count on her to save me. I don’t trust her. Not after she so casually plucked me from the wall and dropped me in this jar. She’ll probably take his side. She might spout a lot of spider friendly talk, but she seemed into the man. I doubt she would choose me over him.

Now I just want to punish him, somehow, if only I can escape. What about the toaster? I could fill that with bug parts and sawdust, and with the warm-up time, maybe he would walk away, allowing time for a fire to start— but I’m not thinking clearly here. I don’t want to burn the house down.

And I have to remember to stop discussing my plans on the blog.

(Battery getting pretty low — I better post this. I’m hoping I can make at least one more update.)

Here they come—

After the man and the cat went to bed, the other spiders started coming by the jar. At first I was excited about the prospect of getting help, but they only wanted to enjoy a little schadenfreude and tsk-tsking. They seemed satisfied that the situation had “resolved itself.”

They didn’t want to hear my plans for getting me out of the jar. They definitely didn’t want to hear how they could help with those plans. No one would go outside and find the house number and street name so I could call outsiders in to help.

This is upsetting. I’m a part of this community. Maybe not the most popular member at the moment, but still. I would do anything to help a fellow spider sister or brother in need. I have been doing everything in my power to help them get rid of the man. But they’re too cautious and small-minded to appreciate it.

Ursel would have helped me, no matter what. But she’s gone, and no one else seems to care about me anymore.

Boris crawled over. “I’m sad to see you come to this end,” he said.

(Not the kind of “caring” I was looking for.)

“Go away, Boris,” I said. “You’re scaring away the younger spiders who might actually have the palps to try helping me.”

“You have to understand the way the web stretches,” he said, embarking on a half hour lecture about tradition and “the circle of life.” Then he went into paternal mode. “Now, Fritzi, you know you’ve always been like a daughter to me—”

I couldn’t take it anymore. I covered the sensory hairs on my legs and said, “Lah lah lah, I’m not listening,” until he went away.

After midnight, Gretchen came to see me. She was one of the younger spiders I hoped would have some spirit for adventure. I was thrilled to discover I had gained some fame among the young ones. Word of my exploits had spread. Gretchen was interested in danger and rebellion. Perfect.

I outlined a plan where she might lead the cat to knock the jar off the counter. All she had to do was venture out from behind the sugar and flour jugs when the cat was leering over my jar. As the cat scrambled to get her, there would be a good chance for a flailing paw or tail to send the jar flying. I would do the rest, I told her. She just had to make it to safety under the microwave.

The idea frightened her — this was the cat of a hundred spider deaths, after all — but as I personally recounted my tales of “Operation Plummet” and “the Refrigerator Gambit,” she became emboldened.

But then Liselotte stepped out from behind the toaster.

“Gretchen, go back to the shelter area,” she said.

“But—”

“Go.”

Gretchen went. I think she was relieved. I didn’t blame her. She was young, with many eggs to lay, and it was an extremely dangerous mission I had asked of her. But she might have spun up her courage without Liselotte’s interference.

I turned to her, my nemesis, and prepared to unleash my fury.

“I have little to say to you,” Liselotte said. I thought she would fly into a rage of her own, but she was calm. “You won’t be mourned and you won’t be missed. Your doom is entirely of your own making. Goodbye, Fritzi. Nobody else will be visiting you tonight.”

This made me even angrier. I started spinning a shimmering web of invective around her, but she was already walking away, saying, “Lah lah lah, I’m not listening…”

Boris! He must have warned her about my recruiting intentions.

They’re all plotting against me.

(Maybe even Gretchen was sent to raise my hopes only to plunge them into their web…)

Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrgggggghh!!!

But all I can do is go back to waiting for Fiery Fred.

He also pointed out that it was clear the man hadn’t forgotten about the “spider problem,” which caused several people to nod in agreement and scowl at me.

Someone called out, “Let’s throw Webber out of here right now!” Yikes. You don’t want to run into an angry spider mob. That’s the worst kind of mob. I also heard: “Who knows what else she’ll do? She’ll get us all killed!”

No, no, no! I was trying to save them, the ingrates. I thought of the stove, still waiting with its incendiary payload, and wondered if and when I should warn them about staying clear. Not quite yet.

But what if the woman did prevail on the man to leave us alone? What luck to find such an ally. She might tame the man and even get rid of the cat for allergenic reasons. Arrgggghh!!! If I had done nothing, everything might have gotten better with none of this danger to me and the community. Now I had to make a decision. Disarm the booby traps? Risky, to run out there right now. Maybe it could wait until later.

I had been caught up in the arguing, and missed what the man and woman were saying. I tuned back in. The cat was sitting on the far end of the kitchen table from them, watching the woman warily; distrustingly.

“I’ll tell you what,” the man was saying. “If you can learn to accept Mr. Whiskers with your allergies, I can learn to… accept spiders. I mean, as long as they stay out of our way, right? I don’t want to see a bunch of cobwebs all over the place—”

The woman laughed. “No, silly. We’re not going to let spiders overrun the house. But they don’t really want to. I just don’t want you spraying a bunch of poison around. That’s not good for us or the environment in general, right?”

Oh, spitting spider! A greenie. You couldn’t do much better than that with humans. What had I done?!

The man looked relieved, mixed with some concern. But you could tell he was totally whipped already. If he was a spider, he’d be as good as dead by now.

“Would you like some tea?” the man asked the woman.

Noooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!

“Yes, thank you,” she said. “I love tea.”

I stood there, frozen, unable to decide what to do. It might be too late anyway, I thought. The others were still arguing and not paying attention to me or the conversation. The man hadn’t gotten up yet to make the tea. “Thanks for going out with me last night,” he said. “And for staying over.” Oh my goddess, what a sap. I decided to make my move. I had to disarm the traps!

I ran across the top of the wall while they made googly eyes and cooed at each other. The others cried out for me to stop. It was yet another risky maneuver, but the man and woman’s eyes were locked on each other. With any luck they’d go back to the bedroom for a while. But in my haste, I forgot about…

“Yeeeow!” The cat leaped from the table to the top of a nearby set of curtains. She missed me! And then had to clutch at the fabric to keep from falling. The man and the woman turned to look, and the man immediately went to help the cat.

In a panic, I kept running.

“Hello,” said the woman, and I dimly realized she was talking to me. I slowed, suddenly feeling a paralyzing urge to stop. I wanted to disappear; melt into the wall. She quickly moved a chair to the wall and hopped up on it, and as I frantically started moving again…

…she swept me right into her palm and curled her hand into a warm, dark prison cell.

From there, I could see nothing. I could hear only muffled sounds. My panic notwithstanding, it was soothing to sense her blood flowing under the skin. After several minutes, during which I heard voices and several sharp rapping sounds, her fingers uncurled and she dropped me into a glass jar which the man quickly put a lid on. The lid had holes in it. I was in maximum security lockdown.

I looked out to see the woman and man watching me; her with fascination and him with disgust. I couldn’t see the cat, but dreaded the thought of her standing over the jar, gloating.

“Looks like a barn funnel weaver to me,” she said, showing off. “A fairly common spider.” (Oh, yeah, common hussy?)

“But it’s huge,” the man said, making a face. “That’s common?“

“Isn’t she beautiful?”

The man didn’t answer, asking instead, “Now, what are you going to do with it?”

“We’ll keep her here. For a while, at least.”

The man made a face. The woman said, “Look at this as a chance for some desensitization, sweetie.” I had so misjudged her. And I realized I might have to hang myself with my own web if they continued with the googly talk.

Imprisoned I remain, as I write this on my spiPhone. I’m trying to preserve the battery but couldn’t help posting these updates.

Please help me! Although, I still don’t know where this house is. When I’ve looked out the windows in the past, I’ve seen lots of trees and houses. Does that help?

What about the “Fiery Fred” trap? Ha! It’s still waiting for him. After the commotion, they forgot about the tea. The woman said she had some things to do, and the man gave her a ride home.

They left me sitting on the kitchen counter with the cat standing over the jar, staring at me, and gloating, as expected. I hoped she might knock the jar off the counter, causing it to shatter and giving me a chance to escape, but she just sat there flicking her tail, smiling, and then went to take a nap.

When the man returned, he stayed clear of the jar, looking over here with fear and loathing from time to time.

I’m working on a few escape plans, mostly involving the jar breaking when someone knocks it down from the counter. It seems like a stretch to hope the man might do it when he’s thrashing around from a small stove fire. I’ll need help from the outside. I’ll need to recruit an accomplice.

Shutting down for now to save power. I’ll post an update if anything changes. Sunday morning tea time seems like the next best chance of producing a newsworthy event.

BOOM!

They watched movies. They writhed around on the couch, which the cat observed with obvious distaste. (Especially when the woman sneezed a couple of times, mentioning cat allergies. Oh, the cat did not like that.) Then they went up to the man’s bedroom.

She’s still here this morning. The entire community is atwitter about it. He never has guests. What did this mean, we wondered. Would the woman come to live here? Would she be prejudiced against the arachnid community like him?

Boris said female humans are much worse when it comes to speciesist attitudes. Especially against us. What if the man told her about the incidents of the past few days? She might want to deploy pesticides against us, Boris said. He made a point of looking my way, as the source of the incidents and the danger to the community.

I felt some urgency in seeing my latest plan succeed, knowing that no one else would act, and realizing that Boris would forevermore keep connecting every bad thing to me.

Then there was the breakfast conversation this morning. It was awkward and uncomfortable. The man only had cold cereal to offer her. That’s all he ever has for breakfast. (I was hoping she might eat him for breakfast.) They both seemed strangers to this kind of thing, and fumbled around with their conversation as clumsily as they had in bed last night. It was innocuous and bland until:

“I was really worried about having you over last night,” the man said.

“I was worried too, remember?” she said, and then giggled while he blushed.

“Oh, no, not that–” he said. “I mean–” He suddenly got all agitated, and the woman looked stricken, afraid of what might come next. “I shouldn’t tell you this–”

“No, come on. You can tell me, Nolan,” she said.

“Okay, it’s just that–” He looked down at his cereal. “I don’t want to gross you out or anything.” Her eyes grew wide before squinting, as if to brace against whatever he was leading up to.

I was afraid I knew where he was going.

“Maybe I shouldn’t say,” he said.

“Oh, come on! Now you have to tell me.”

Don’t let him tell her, I prayed to The Goddess.

“Well, maybe it’s not all that bad to say. And first let me say I’m going to do something about it,” he said, before realizing how that sounded.

“Would you just say it already?”

No! No! Don’t tell her, I screamed inside.

“Okay. Don’t be grossed out. I seem to have a spider problem lately.”

Oh, goddess. He was going to tell her. I could picture the board’s reaction. They’d come up with some trumped up emergency declaration to get me thrown out of here. And maybe that wouldn’t be the worst thing, depending on how this went.

“Spiders?”

“Yes. Is that really gross to talk about? Especially over breakfast, after last night— It’s just— It doesn’t seem that romantic, you know?”

“Nolan.” She was smiling. “It’s fine. You had me all worried there for a minute, but–”

He interrupted her, and began talking faster, as if he had nerved himself up for this big confession and he had to get it out. “I try to keep this place really clean, you know? But the other day there was this huge web in the stairway. It freaked me out when I ran into it in the dark. I nearly fell down the stairs and broke my neck. Then, the next day, my cat tripped me up going for a spider. I fell and almost cracked my head open again. I think I caught a glimpse of the thing, and it was big.” He made a face and laughed nervously, too loudly, and kept going before she could get a word in. “I was so worried you might come in and there’d be another giant web, or spiders crawling around, or who knows, and you’d think I kept this place like a barn. You’d think it was all dirty and disgusting and you’d want to leave.”

“Nolan! Really, it’s okay. You know what?”

“What?”

“I like spiders.”

You should have seen the look on the cat’s face.

And the man’s. But especially the cat’s.

Suck it, Kitty!

(There’s more. I’ll try to get another entry posted this afternoon…)

Do you remember those old PSAs with the cartoon barbecue grill named Fiery Fred? Fred would appear to be sleeping peacefully while unsuspecting spiders crawled on him, but then he would wake up and flames would shoot out of his “mouth.” The announcer would say in a deep voice, “Be careful, kids. Gas grills might look like fun places to play, but remember Fiery Fred. You never know when he will wake up!”

And of course the news always has stories about idiots moving into a grill’s venturi tubes, thinking they will be safe there, away from the mouth part. Sometimes they cause a fire, with occasional spider fatalities. It’s sad, tragic, and unnecessary, but it happens.

Anyway, the call to shelter on Wednesday reminded me of the emergency shelter PSA, which got me thinking about the Fiery Fred PSA, and then about the gas stove in the kitchen. If I rigged up the burner there, I might be able to take him down again, whether from a stumble and a fall (that has to work one of these times), or a small fire. Fire is obviously dangerous, but with everyone still on high alert and in the place of refuge, we’d be able to escape out of the house if necessary. With the fire, there is hope for death or injury, or further distraction from spider problems.

So I slipped away early this morning and spent the day stuffing dried-up beetle parts around the front stove burners and wrapping everything in silk. For good measure, I even got one of the garage spiders to hook me up with some sawdust. Those things are powder kegs now; ready to blow. And it’s all completely out of sight. He won’t suspect a thing!

I retreated a safe distance to watch.

The man came home from work at his usual time and fed the cat. Then he told the cat he had a date tonight. A date! (The cat did not like the sound of that.)

I had been staying out of site all day to avoid community interference, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to bring this news back to the others huddled in the shelter. (They could follow me around now, for all I cared. The trap was set.) Everyone agreed this sounded favorable: he’d be too busy to worry about spiders.

Boris pointed out that if the man planned to have a woman over, he might go on an extreme cleaning jag. Dammit, Boris. Always the downer, spinning up trouble for me. And there was Liselotte, nodding emphatically in agreement, preying on everyone’s fear for her own political gain.

But I didn’t care. I was high on the anticipation of my plan’s success. I guess I was smirking because she became suspicious and asked what I had been doing all day. Afraid they might detect the vibrations of my plan and undo my work, I mumbled something about hunting and “thinking about things.”

I hung out by the shelter opening, waiting expectantly for the tea time conflagration, but… the man didn’t have his tea. The stove and my trap just sat there, unused.

Oh, come on! The odds are so high against me, I need some predictability to have any chance at all. These human social rituals are really throwing things off around here. (Although maybe just as well if he’s not thinking about spiders much.)

Right now, the man is walking around getting ready. He’s picking out clothes, babbling to the cat about how much the cat will love this woman, and singing.

Despite my frustration at justice delayed, at least I can enjoy the sour expression on the cat’s face.

Dumb cat.

I’ll be monitoring the situation closely, and hoping he uses the stove tomorrow morning.

The cat was going nuts. It was long past dinner time. The man apologized, saying he had been out to happy hour. He claimed to have called to explain, but that the cat hadn’t answered. (I don’t remember the phone ringing at all.)

He was acting peculiar. Was he “drunk?” Maybe more like: giddy?

The man is almost never late, and as far as I know, he never goes to happy hour. An unexpected turn, but it seemed a good thing for me. Even Boris acknowledged that this was a positive sign. He said that people usually don’t hold grudges for long against spiders. But then he added that spiders usually don’t go to such lengths to “freak out the homeowner.”

He further observed that, maybe, if the man didn’t see any evidence of spiders for a few days or weeks, maybe we’d escape from pogromatic activity. The others all sighed with relief, as if suddenly Boris was a respected village elder and the source of all wisdom in these matters. Boris. He isn’t even on the HSA board.

I could tell his remarks were directed at me, because he pointed at me. I tried to gauge the mood in the shelter area. While still getting a healthy dose of stink eye from the others, it appeared that they might be willing to let it go. They were desperate to get out of there by that time. And maybe I would let it go now. (For a while, anyway.)

But then Liselotte, that spiditch, spoke up. “Well, I know one good way to ensure that things stay quiet around here. Maybe those who seem to be unhappy with the house might want to consider moving to a new home.”

Subtle.

“I’m sure we could write a good recommendation, hmmmmm?” she said.

So that’s how it was going to be. Bribery. Following procedure, it would take them a month to formally evict me from the house. Obviously they would prefer I just left quickly and quietly. The recommendation would give me a shot at survival. I’d need to find a new home and get accepted into a new HSA quickly. With a formal eviction, word would get around. I’d have to travel far in the hostile outdoors, vulnerable to any feral cat, robin, or street spider. My chances would not be good.

Another possibility was that I could grovel my way out of it. Act all hangbug and remorseful. I considered it, but decided Liselotte would just let me plead and cry about it, and then go through with the expulsion anyway.

She’s had it in for me for a long time. Ever since I mated with Dietrich, when she had been practically dragging him into her web. But he wanted me. What can I say? I’m hot. Of course he died and then there was nothing left to do but eat him. You know how it is. So now she doesn’t care for me.

I thought about my latest plan. Maybe I would have to leave, but not before trying one more time for the man. I’d come so close. I wanted him dead.

I didn’t say anything. Everyone waited expectantly, as if I were a big fly that might come buzzing into their web, but I wasn’t going to fall for it.

“Hmmmph,” said Liselotte, trading glances with the other two members of the board.

That was yesterday.

Today has started uneventfully. The man went about his morning routine without any overt genocidal planning with the cat. He seemed distracted, and went out the door without incident.

Although still chafing at the confines of the shelter, everyone is crawling easier now. Except for me. After assigning a few people to hunting duty and a few more to watch me, the board went off to a closed-web meeting two hours ago. I think they’re looking for some way to expedite my eviction.

I need to act soon, but my next attempt on the man will have to wait for tomorrow. (Assuming I can slip away unnoticed to carry out preparations.) It depends on a certain man ritual…

This plan… just wait and see!

If I succeed, I know all will be forgiven. Maybe I’ll even run for the board in my role as conquering heroine, just to annoy Liselotte.

Expect my next update tomorrow evening. I’ll strike when he returns home. If all goes well, I’m hoping I can report back around six o’clock with good news for you!