I arrived home this morning to find this sign (from my daughter) on my door:

I have a lot of holes in my house, and I live in the woods, and things crawl into my house all the time. I’m trying to fix it; see “Fixing My House” category in this blog.

But this wasn’t a tarantula. I think it was a wolf spider. They’re big babies. It’s sad to see how scared they get when you try to capture them. I’ve had big scary spiders just keel over and die when I was trying to help them get the hell out of my house. They have kind of cute little faces. But I do not like having spiders in my house. I want it to stop!

This guy/girl finally let me trap him/her in a bowl with a plate on top, and take him/her outside, up high away from the chickens. Once he/she was outside, he/she was like, What? I’m not dead? I’m outside? Everything’s cool? Weird! I could feel the happiness perking up from the spider. It’s what my friend Stephen calls “getting your donkey back”—from an old folk tale where some guy’s miserable, complaining all the time. Then someone steals the guy’s donkey and he becomes even more miserable. Then the thief brings the donkey back, and now the guy is super-happy!

I always think it must be like an alien abduction for the creature when we scoop him up and relocate him. Terrifying, loss of control and understanding, fear for one’s life, excess of novelty, etc. And then you end up miles from where you started, with your clothes on backwards.