AUSTRALIA
- [QLD] Caloundra
(Wk.1 of 1week)
Week
55 of World Tour
Fang
The Spider
“There’s
no room here for anyone who doesn’t like spiders”, Val said.
So that was my warning. And
just as well she mentioned that, because even though spiders don’t
worry me, sometimes I’ve responded to calls for ‘help’
when an unusually large spider has gotten into the house. Many years
ago, my response was swift and usually while holding a shoe or a rolled
up newspaper. But since then I’ve been a lot more thoughtful and
relocated my 8-legged friends to the wide-open outdoors.
Val and Annette were my hosts
for the last 3 days of my Caloundra LETS visit, and they had a lovely
2-storey kit home on about 2 acres in Landsborough. My room was on the
top floor and I also had my own bathroom which I shared with Fang, the
above-mentioned house pet.
Fang was a mature male huntsman
spider, about 6 inches (15 cms) from one tip of its hairy legs to the
other. I’m not sure how long he’d been in that bathroom,
but he’d probably strayed into it while looking for some food,
or maybe even a girlfriend. Nevertheless, it looked as if he was going
to be there for a while, because he looked quite comfortable tucked
into one corner of the bathroom, just above the towel rack.
Unfortunately, on my last
morning with Val and Annette, Fang had strayed again. This time into
the shower recess. So I had a couple of options. Do I forgo my morning
shower? Or do I take my shower and give Fang a hot bath as well?
I always look forward to
having a nice hot shower in the mornings, so I didn’t want to
pass it up. I knew Fang was far too big to get washed down the drain,
but I wasn’t sure how he would handle the hot water. So I decided
to move him out of the shower recess and back to the bathroom wall near
the towel rack. I moved Fang out by carefully coaxing him into a large
plastic cup. He seemed OK with the transfer and just stayed where I
deposited him. But while I was getting stripped to hop into the shower,
I heard a noise.
Fang had jumped onto the
lid of the small purple rubbish bin on the bathroom counter. Where would
he go next? I wondered. So I lifted the rubbish bin lid to move him
back to the wall again. But as soon as the lid came up, Fang panicked
and jumped off, and straight into the bin!
Oh, no! Not in the bin! I
thought. Val will be so annoyed with me if she loses Fang. Luckily the
bin was empty and lined with a clean plastic bag. So I carefully removed
the bag and nudged Fang back into the plastic cup and onto the wall
again.
Thankfully, I’ve
had my shower, got dressed and had breakfast, and Fang is still there.
And I leave in 15 minutes. Whew!
This
article is taken from the ebook,
400-Day LETS Odyssey
About
the book
|
James
Taris web sites
JamesTaris.com
LETS-Linkup.com
Rich-Bastards.com
Honey-BeeBooks.com
TheGloryOfAthens.com
TravelWithoutMoney.com
ChineseArt-ChineseArt.com
ShanghaiPhotoGuide.com
ShockProofMaterial.com
2pups.com
