Spiders

Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore: You can't tell me not to worry about the spider because it can't hurt me.

I just used the second toilet so as not to disturb Laura, whose room is right next to the bathroom. The second toilet is at the back corner of the house, and tends to collect the bugs from the backyard who don't like the weather outside. A rather large spider crept out from under the door frame and thankfully just sat there as I stared at it, not willing to take my eyes off it for fear it would end up crawling across my foot. I tried to ignore the many little tiny spiders with webs on the window frame. I tried not to wonder what kind of spider I'd brushed down with the broom and then somehow managed to squash without getting myself too close to it earlier in the day, or how many more would come to replace it (I think this toilet is listed in this particular species' prime real estate guide, though I'm not sure why they keep moving in when all the tenants end up dead). Other than my room, the house is dark and lonely and a little bit spooky right now. I came back to the computer and immediately looked up an online identification chart of dangerous Australian spiders found in Sydney, not at all trusting my memory of such things. My mission, come daylight and the completion of my essay, is to determine whether or not to ban the use of the second toilet based on the presence of deadly spiders, or at the very least ones that deliver a nasty, painful bite. Without getting too close to the potentially nasty spiders. At this hour, I'm quite convinced that the spider that came out to stare at me was a white-tail, although it kept its "tail" under the door frame. White-tails are nonlethal but nasty. I'm sure this will all be better come morning and I'll find that we're merely hosting innocent little garden spiders. After all, there are plenty of perfectly friendly spiders populating Sydney.