Spider

I forgot to write about my spider friend - one seems to have adopted us.

I first saw it on the floor in J's bathroom. It was close to the door, and when I went in to get whatever I was after, it backed away, like it saw me, then came forward again, like it wanted to get closer to check me out.

Then one night I saw what looked to be the same spider on the wall above the toilet in J's bathroom. It's a fairly small spider, about the same diameter as a quarter, but it looks almost furry - not one of those skinny-legged spiders. It's black, with a white spot on its abdomen (I didn't freak out too much, because I think black widows have red spots, not white). I saw it on the wall, and because I'm not a big fan of bugs, it ooged me a little, so I kept an eye on it. (J was in the bathtub at the time, and I wasn't going to take my attention off of him to do anything with the spider.) It crawled up to the underside of the cabinet above the toilet, then crawled up the side and eventually over the top. It would periodically stop, and look almost like it was looking at us. Then when it got to the top of the cabinet, it would disappear and reappear on the edge, almost like it was looking down at us. But it went up on top of the cabinet, and I figured that was that.

The next night, I saw the spider on the floor next to the toilet, looking pretty poorly - I thought it was dead at first. Then I saw it trying to climb up the side of the bathtub, but it didn't get far. It fell back down onto the floor and twitched occasionally, and the last time I checked on it before J and I got out of the bathroom, it looked curled up. I figured that was that.

The next night, I saw the spider on the bathtub. It was time for J's bath, he was in there with me, and I didn't want that spider right there for his bath, so I brushed the spider off into the empty trashcan. I kept glancing at the trashcan, expecting the spider to crawl up out of it, but it never did, and I figured that was that.

The next night, the spider was on the edge of the trashcan when it was time for J's bath. I was still a little freaked out at having the spider in the room, but by this point I was pretty curious to see what it would do next. It sat on the trashcan for a while, and would periodically raise a couple of its legs, almost like a horse would if it was rearing. Then it somehow got to the handle of the toilet brush. It would climb up on the tip of the handle, and when I'd look over at it, would crawl down the side of the handle a little ways to where I couldn't really see it. Then it would crawl back up on top of the handle, again, almost like it would crawl back up to look at us.

The next morning, I saw it on the back of the toilet. I didn't see it again that day.

The next night, it was perched on the shower curtain. The curtain is a dark color, so the spider wasn't real obvious until I got close, and it startled me a bit. I may be a nut, but I decided to talk to the spider a bit. I told it I didn't mind if it stayed there, seeing as how it would eat other bugs and all, but that I'd appreciate it if it would stay somewhere a little less obvious during bath time, that it freaked me out just a little.

Last night, I didn't see the spider when I first went into the bathroom with J for bath time. Then I looked up at the top part of the shower curtain, and there he sat. I kept a close eye on it during bath time, but it never moved. Just sat there, and one time, turned around like it was looking at us.

I'm no expert on spider behavioral patterns, so I have no idea if this is odd or not. But I'm kind of getting used to having the little critter around.