Introducing the Spider Removal Kit!

I have a problem. I’m afraid of spiders. I want to kill them, but I usually can’t.

I wasn’t always afraid of spiders. Somehow, over the past three years, I have become more and more afraid of them. And for some reason, the big ones come out when Mo goes away. So there I am alone in the apartment and bam! Skitter, skitter, skitter–a spider walks across the wall, the roof, the dresser, the carpet, etc. This fall we saw a lot more spiders than we have in the past year, and no one is sure why. We had an exterminator come in a few weeks ago to take care of this, and although we see far fewer than before, they’re still coming. First they were beige and small. Now they’re black and bigger. People keep telling us to vacuum and clean everywhere as much as we can, but I’m probably the cleanest person around within at least a 100 mile radius, so that can’t be it.

The problem with seeing spiders in my home is that I have trouble killing them. Part of it is because I can’t bring myself to get close enough to kill them most of the time, and part of it is because I’ve been told not to kill them. A few years ago Mo scolded me for killing a spider, telling me that we were not allowed to do that as Muslims. I already knew that the spider was given respect because of its place in Islamic history, but I wasn’t so sure about not being allowed to kill them. I had friends who had said the same in the past, but I remained skeptical. The hadith (a narrative about Prophet Muhammad (SAW) or something he did) says that Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and his closest companion, Abu Bakr, were traveling to Medina and at some point found out that the kaffar (nonbelievers) were after them. Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and Abu Bakr hid in a cave, and when the kaffar found the cave, they saw that a spider had built a web over the entrance and they decided that they could not be hiding there. What is certain is that the Qur’an does state that we should not hurt any animal, as they are all Allah’s creations, but we may if they pose harm to us. There is a divide on this topic, as there are on many others. I found out that Mo’s mother was the one who told him why he shouldn’t kill spiders when he was very young. As for me, I try my best to follow the rule of not killing them–as long as I can get them out. And therein lies my problem.

Mo went away for two days, so I had the place to myself. I had a huge report to work on, but I just couldn’t bring myself to concentrate on it. So after several hours of ignoring my work, I finally sat down on the sofa with my laptop. I immediately got distracted and started browsing through photos that MSN was featuring on its website–photos of insects and arachnids taken by a popular photographer. I was twitching as I saw them, and concluded that if I ever saw any of these types of spiders I would run screaming out of my home. I finally closed the browser, created a cover page, and was writing the first few sentences of the report when I saw something in the corner of my left eye. Yes, there on the floor was a spider. Ah, irony. It was wide and black. And it was 3/4″ long. I hadn’t seen this type yet in the apartment, and it bothered me that it came out while Mo was away. We have two sofas, and in order to grab my Raid and Lysol I had to climb over the other sofa. On my way back to the creepy-crawler, I grabbed our Spider Removal Kit. Yes, you read correctly.

Mo and I devised this kit over the span of several spider removals. Because Mo didn’t like my killing them, because I couldn’t go near them without trying to kill them, and because Mo wasn’t afraid of them, he was our exterminator. He started out by sliding a regular sheet of paper under them and then carefully walking them out into the hallway. But the paper was light and when the spider walked around to the other side, the paper would flip over. So we used a heavier stock of paper the next few times. But the spiders would walk around to the other side or fall off, causing me to scream and Mo to search for beige spiders on beige carpet. Then we hit the jackpot. I brought to him a small Tupperware container. This container, combined with our sheet of paper, was the ultimate spider catching tool.

But this wouldn’t work for the spider I saw on the floor the night Mo was away. I had the Raid in my left hand, the Tupperware in my right, and I tried to keep from thinking about whether or not it would jump toward me. After several throws, I finally managed to get the container over it. I knew I wasn’t going to be able to handle bringing a spider that big out of the apartment, so I knew I had to kill it. But before I did this, I fought with myself. During this internal struggle, I placed five of my research books on top of the small container so that the spider couldn’t get away. This was the result:

With a heavy heart, I finally managed to strategically lift the container at just the right height and angle to keep spraying it with Raid and Lysol. After a long time it curled up and died. It took another few minutes to get the courage to remove it with a paper towel. I still feel bad. And disappointed. But just writing this is making my neck hurt from the twitching. If you’re greeted by a spider or two this Halloween, gather up your strength and try to let them live. The kindness of people like you may cancel out my weakness.

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