Carol’s Column

Able housekeepers and admirable ‘romantic’ tactics

I fell in love twice when I was 12. Once with Marvin Alkin who lived on top of me. Flatwise. We became attached to each other in more ways than one when the first time we kissed the wire braces on our teeth intermingled and it took a day to extricate us from each other.

A true bonding.

My second love affair was with a female. Her name was Sally and our mutual attraction to each other could be described as a true learning curve in the experience of life.

Sally was just her nickname. Her true nomenclature was Scytodes fusca and she was a delicate, slender-legged spider. A member of the arachnid club - other less salubrious orders in this class include scorpions, ticks and mites -

Sally was beautiful.

I found Sally drowning in the toilet bowl, rescued her and nurtured her for a few years. A true friend, when she died I gave her an appropriate sea burial down the toilet.

Since then, my attachment, attraction and admiration for spiders has grown in leaps and bounds. And talking leaps, did you know that there is a tiny feather duster look-alike spider called a jumping spider?

At close up, it looks like Michael Jackson wearing a fur coat.

Bigger than a flea, but smaller than a fly, this handsome spider - the family name is salticid - is similar in action to the human male.

A hunter, jumping spiders stalk their prey and then, unexpectedly leap upon them.

Now the interesting thing is that the spring in their legs comes not from muscles, but instead from a sudden increase in blood pressure (exactly the same as an active jumping human penis) which straightens the legs and causes them to kick upwards in a jump.

It's easy to unwittingly become a murderer as you dust and wipe these creatures away, but we should aim to desist from arachnid genocide because spiders are natural housekeepers.

The common house spider, so tiny and dainty, builds its little nest in a snug corner perhaps on the ceiling or under a ledge, spins a web and waits for flies and fish moths which it catches and eats with gusto. Encourage a few spiders to move into your residence and you'll be able to banish insect spray cans.

The more I read about spiders, the more I like them for they are truly intelligent creatures.

Like Richard Branson, they're into ballooning, except they start at a much earlier age.

After hatching, spiderlings climb to an elevated position, such as a blade of grass or a pole.

When they reach the summit, they wait for a breeze, all the while releasing a strand of silk. The wind gusts and the spiderling hanging to its thread, is lifted high and blown away.

Often over oceans to other continents or up hills and mountains. What a brilliant and innovative way to get around.

Then there are the evocative names such as kite spider, ogre-faced spider, six-eyed crab spider, cannibalistic spider or violin spider.

I really believe that if you haven't seen a golden orb spider in the middle of its great intricate web shining like a sun, then you haven't lived.

My husband does not understand my on-going love affair with spiders. He thinks I should go for jewellery or shoes like Imelda Marcos.

To tell the truth, what I find most fascinating about most spiders is that, firstly, the females are more attractive and much larger than their males.

Secondly, when they have had their way with their mates, they kill and eat them.

It makes you think.

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