Just Turn the Lights On!

The following is an article I wrote for the Circle Banner awhile back. Now that it has appeared in this prestigious periodical, I thought I'd post it for the blog reading audience.

Electricity is expensive in Honduras, so being the budget conscious consumer, I always try to minimize unnecessary lighting. We live in a fellow missionary’s casita (small guest house), which is delightfully comfy and cozy, but lacks a washing machine. So I take our laundry across the yard to my landlady’s house. She has been gone to the States the whole time we have been here, so upon entering her empty house, it had been my habit to only switch on a couple lights, just enough to see to get back to the laundry room.

Well, I soon learned my lesson about inadequate lighting. As I prepared to leave her house one evening, I picked up my dark colored laundry basked full of dark clothes from the rather dark-ish space where it had been sitting next to the kitchen island. Something caught my eye, and I looked down to see a very hairy tarantula about 4” in diameter hop from the basket onto my shorts and proceed to skitter around and up the back of my shirt. As you might well imagine, this evoked a strong, involuntary motor response! In a series of events that was entirely out of my control, I simultaneously shrieked, threw the laundry basket, and took off bucking and shaking through the kitchen and dining room. The thought of touching the aforementioned creature with my hands was completely out of the question, so I had no choice but to run and shake until I was sure its hefty body was no longer in contact with mine. After a full lap around the kitchen table, I finally slowed down enough to assess the situation and determine it was gone. Of course, I still had enough adrenaline in my system to accomplish some Herculean feat, which was a good thing because I now had to hunt down and kill my new-found foe.

Now we all know that tarantulas are actually shy, docile, rather delicate creatures that pose no threat whatsoever to human life. However, I opted to smash it anyway, because a.) anything that scares me that badly deserves to die, and b.) the alternatives (leaving it in the house to jump on me again later or catch-and-release in the yard) seemed completely ludicrous. After some searching (remember, I still only had on one light), I finally located my tarantula under the kitchen table. I generally prefer to kill creepy crawly things with some sort of long-ish implement, like a machete or a shovel, but in this case I had to settle for smashing it with a flip-flop, lest it scurry away while I hunted up such a tool.

While horrifying in nature, such close encounters with tarantulas seem to be blessedly rare. So if you’re planning a trip to some jungle-y foreign land, fear not. Just turn on the lights!!