Sweet smell of death

I am hunter. 

I am killer.

I am genocidal.

I am man. 

What makes me such?

This does

Do I feel bad about murdering thousands upon thousands of innocent spiders in my garage?  Hell no.  They brought it upon themselves.  And if history's any indication, my wife's not willing to root out and kill all the eight-legged-freaks herself, so it's on me.

What brought this up? 

A little backstory...

A few years ago, I found out I was going to head out west and go to film school at USC.  Awesome.  What's not awesome?  Traffic.  I used to commute 45 minutes to work and 45 back - this was back when I worked at that god-awful, two-bit Fox TV station - and covered about 70 miles round trip.  Trying to get 70 miles in a DAY in Los Angeles is generally considered suicidal. 

The thought of spending vast amounts of time in my car not going to a wrestling show, sounded like kind of a bummer.  So, I did the only logical thing I could think of. 

I manned up by proving I have a small penis

I picked up a 1998 Yamaha Virago for a few thousand bucks and started putting rubber to the road.  Lane splitting, ocean air, and year-round operation way outweighed the fact that I would have been zipping around the second largest city in the country on a donorcycle with about three months experience. 

Of course, when we got out here, it took about six months just to get used to navigating Los Angeles, let alone figuring out the traffic patterns.  But that didn't seem to matter much, since the Virago's engine seized up three months before we moved. 

Crap

What does this have to do with spiders, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you, Mr. Impatient. 

Before the Virago stopped a-runnin', I gave it a real good wash-down.  The whole shebang.  Wash.  Wax.  Leather treatment.  That saddle was as slick as the Gulf of Mexico.

This was when I found it.  I pulled the pillion (passenger seat, pile-on seat, bitch seat) and found the world's biggest spider nestled in the world's biggest spider's nest. 

Like this, but in nightmare form

I wasn't even aware that spiders nested.  I thought they just spun some webs, talked to the occasional pig, and sometimes tried to take over the world after nuclear explosions.  This particular spider was a potential world destroyer at, perhaps, the size of a quarter. Obviously just a few days into its nuclear reaction, this little pest was using my Virago as a growing ground, feeding on the random bugs that liked to crawl all over the newly treated leather seat. 

And, now that I think about it, that little jerk was probably biding his time, waiting for the perfect moment to kill and eat me.  He was like a farmer, but four times as effective (because spiders have four times the arms).  Maybe that's why I put on so much weight after I quit wrestling. 

Or it could have been the gallon a week...

In the most man-ish, high pitch squeal I could muster, I reached for the only weapon I could find.  A full bottle of Windex, which I unleashed with a terrible aggression.  Half a bottle later, the man-killer had either been poisened to death or drowned.  I was OK with either.  Had I been able to find the remains, I'd have mounted that sucker for the world to see.  Sever its head and mount it on a toothpick, warning others to stay away from my ride. 

For all I know, that spider enjoyed his bath, and just ducked under the main seat, waiting to absorb the Windex as a super-grow nutrient formula.  Maybe it was for the best that the bike broke down. 

But nowadays, I have another mode of transportation.

Bigger engine means even smaller penis

And this Suzuki Boulevard C50 sits in my garage with a very inviting pillion just beckoning to the black widows and brown recluse and all those other creepy crawlies to hitch a ride down the 405 just to snack on my liquefied insides.

Not on my watch.

I finally took the time to clean out the garage properly.  I uncovered so many spiders, my skin's still crawling after two weeks.  I can't believe I'd let it go so long.  Who knows how many time I've cheated sure death on the interstate.  If one of those guys crawled on my hand going 70 mph, I'd be tempted to dump the bike just to try to squish the sucker against the center barricade. 

So I set off the bomb. 

And there's nothing left to worry about. 

Shit