Arachnophobia ©

I have started puttering around Lisa’s house while she has been off to work. It keeps me sane having something to do.
I have been cooking and have done some vacuuming but the other day I wanted to go out to do some gardening.
I walked out in her yard to look at her planter pots.
I have been hearing her say that she has to tear out the grass growing in them so she could plant some flowers.
I like working in the garden at home so I decided to go out there and help her out while she was at work and surprise her when she got home.
Well the only one who got a surprise was yours truly.
She has these 2 big planter boxes, about 4 ft long by 18 inches wide and 2 feet deep.
The grass that was growing in them was a foot high and healthy looking I might add.
I had been asking here a couple of days earlier if she had some gardening tools and I was told there was some under the house.
After a thorough investigation I found none.
So I figured what the hell it’s only grass right.
So I grab a clump of grass with my hands and yank on them.
Nothing happened.
I didn’t even wrinkle a single blade of grass and I am no slouch.
I get closer to the planter box and give it a GOOD yank this time and this time I practically planted myself in the box.
Fuck
The grass was firmly planted in the damn thing and was refusing to leave.
OK, it was time for a plan of attack to I stepped back and stared looking around and looking for something to use.
I found a piece of wood and started going around the inside of the box hoping to loosen it up a bit.
After going around once I threw the stick away and grabbed a big handful of the grass and yanked again.
This time I got a different result.
All the contents of the planter box came out in one big square block and that wasn’t all.
These large spiders with bodies the size of quarters started spilling out of the sides like I was in some kind of Indiana Jones movie.
They were running across the top and towards me.
I dropped the block so it fell perfectly back in the planter box and grabbed for the stick and started fighting back the spiders and they were running towards me.
Lisa had said they had big spiders and she wasn’t kidding but what she hadn’t said was they ran in gangs.
Having killed or scattered the spiders I was still faced with getting rid of the grass that was snuggled back in the box.
This time I took the stick and started stabbing the earth until I thought it was soft enough and then put the stick down and pulled on the grass again.
This time only half of it came out and I dropped it on the ground. I looked in the box and there were these large black beetles scurrying all over the place on the bottom.
I’m thinking I know how those spiders got big with all of these things running around in the pot.
Rolling the chunk of roots over, I could see a big hole on the bottom with a big blob of webbing.
This must have been a spider’s nest and if it was a nest, I hoped those weren’t baby spiders because they were big and I definitely didn’t want to meet momma.
I used the stick and my hands to loosen up the soil to put it back in the pot.
Yes I said hands and I had no gloves on.
After finishing that, I went to work on the other half of the planter and this time only found one ugly spider.
By the time I started working on the second planter Lisa’s son came out and asked me what I was doing to which I told him and then he asked if there were any spiders.
I told him there had been and that I had gotten rid of them.
I asked if he wanted to help me with the second planter but when I looked up he had mysteriously disappeared.
I wonder what happened to him.
I spent half the afternoon digging and smacking with my stick but in the end I had the planters grass free and half full of soil.
I have also learned that I hate spiders, particularly big black ones with red bellies.



Walker