Introducing Horace

Disclaimer: In this post I describe a spider as "large" and "sizeable".  I am completely aware that many of you live in other countries where spiders are genuinely large and sizeable, and that my spiders are indeed eensy weensy in comparison. However, they are quite large to me.

Hello everyone!  Living alone is still going well, the other night I woke up at 2am with a spider on my face.  I feel like this definitely wouldn't have happened if HB was still here, as clearly the spider would have chosen his face.
Also because maybe he would have a stricter policy on spiders.

My spider policy is as follows:

Category 1: Very Small / Daddy Long-Legs
Action: Leave to go about their business.  Probably they are eating flies or doing some other vaguely helpful spider thing. Also they are challenging to put outside because the small ones are fast, and the daddy-long-legs - wow, those legs really are long, fuck will they fit under the glass even? oh god. oh god I've cut its leg off now what do I do - well they are that. 

Category 2: Smaller-than-Teaspoon
Action: Spider 10 Dream Home.  This is where you put the spider outside with the assistance of a glass, an envelope, and a thousand tiny spider dreams.  If you like you can shout "Move That Glass!" before you fling the spider merrily into the foliage while yelling about how much happier he will be in his new location.

If the spider was really rude, like On My Face At 2am Spider, while you walk him to the door in his glass you can give him a little lecture about accepting his rightful place in the ecosystem.

"Young man, this is NOT your natural habitat."

Category 3: Interesting Jumping Spider - Trite planiceps
Action: He would go outside if he wasn't so interesting. Sometimes eats other spiders, sometimes sits on the wall, sometimes falls in the shower and surprises everyone. You never know what's next with a jumping spider. He is like an episode of Game of Thrones.  With less boobs*.

Category 4: Larger-than-Teaspoon, Smaller-than-WOAHHHFUCK
Action: Spider 10 Dream Home, but very carefully.

Category 5: Horace
I was going to include a picture of Horace, but then I remembered that not everyone enjoys unexpected pictures of spiders, so instead we will have a picture of a Category 5 Kaiju from Pacific Rim.  It's similar enough.  Also, damn I liked Pacific Rim a lot.  But now I'm scared to watch it again because I watched it on a plane and I'm worried it just seemed good because it was better than literally everything else on an Air Malaysia flight** and if I rewatch it now it will be a steaming turd and I will have ruined it for myself, forever -

ANYWAY.  BACK TO -

CATEGORY FIVE HORACE

Horace is a spider who lives in my bedroom window and he is sizeable.  He is too large to attempt to put outside, because what if a) he leapt on my face or b) he ran into the bedroom and disappeared, thus forcing me to sleep on the couch for the rest of my time in this flat?  These would not be beneficial outcomes for me or for Horace.

And yet, I do not wish to kill Horace.

The bedroom window is a long way from the bed and in my direct line of sight, so I can see what Horace is up to.  He's usually not up to much.  Neither am I.  Friendships have been based on less.  Romances have been based on less!  Movies have been based on a lot less.

ahem

ANYWAY, in the interests of me not having to kill Horace and Horace not having to climb onto my face in the night, Horace and I have become friends.  He isn't a pet, because having a window spider as a pet would be crazy person behaviour, and also because the tenancy agreement doesn't allow pets.

To complete your introduction - so you can say hello next time you see him - here is a brief list of

Things Horace Does:

1)  not reply when I say, "Good morning Horace"
2)  not reply when I say "Hello Horace did you have a good day?"
3)  hide when I close the blinds too abruptly
4)  come out and catch insects and then carry them back into his house
5)  not reply when I say "Goodnight, Horace."

stop judging me you all thought this was perfectly reasonable

***

It is now five minutes later and I have opened a cider and informed Horace that I am about to share him with the internet.

He looks impressed.


*No, spiders do not have boobs. 

**Air Malaysia's flight attendants are the worst.  You're all "Hello, I will be the polite, nice passenger today on this long-haul flight" and they are all "god fucken damn it I don't care if you are Saint Francis I just wish that every one of you ridiculous flying motherfuckers would hurry up and eat your dinner so I can get back to clumsily attempting to bone one of my appalling colleagues in the business class seats that we will never, ever upgrade anyone to."  If it had been a bus the flight attendants would have pulled over at the next stop, made all the passengers get off, and then driven the bus to the pub while mooning us all out of the back window.